A Quasar On Elm Street
by Ravensara
Summary: People start turning up dead in unexplainable ways after a Halloween horror movie marathon.
1. Chapter 1

1

My name is Alex Roglitz. You probably have never heard of me, and that's for the best, really. I work for an organization called ArtReal. You wouldn't know them unless you've driven past the building, and since it's out of the way, that's pretty unlikely, although you may have seen the name in the newspapers before. I'm also employed by StarNet, which you probably have heard of, since it's our job to keep you safe from any aliens visiting the planet. I'm a xenophobe: I really, really, _really_ despise dealing with aliens. Space aliens. They abducted my mother when I was five. Did I join StarNet to find the bastards that took her? Maybe take out a little pent up rage on them? Well, I can't honestly deny it. I actually wanted to be a plain, New York City police detective, figuring my telepathic talents would make me a shoe-in. If I couldn't help myself, then maybe I could help others in times of need. But my psychic test results were faxed over to ArtReal, and now my badge has a tiny map of the solar system worked into its design, all gold with the third planet picked out in silver. So vengeance wasn't my initial plan…things just worked out that way. StarNet keeps several counselors on staff to try and weed out the guys who'd rather play it fast and loose and lie on the reports they file at the end of the day. I should have been yanked and discarded with the rest, but my psychic ability makes me valuable; if nothing else, it aids tremendously in communication with species whose first language is as far from anything spoken on Earth as German is from Navajo. Then some brainiac decided to hand me a weapon unlike anything that had ever been developed before.

They call her Quasar number 169. Technically, she should be Double A Quasar number 1, but they decided to keep numbering them as they created them, and 168 of them were just completed fields in a database by the time Amanda came around. ArtReal picks the names. I don't know how they come up with them. She had a real name once, back before she agreed to the Quasaring procedure and became what she is today. Oh, you're thinking a quasar is a space anomaly, right? A quasi-stellar object, or QSO as astronomers recognize them. ArtReal turns ordinary human beings into quasi-realities, or Quas-R's. They have, over a span of decades, found a way to liberate a person's dream self with all dream abilities intact so that it can operate within the wakeful realm. A hundred and sixty-eight of them were at least somewhat transparent, ghost-like in appearance, their bodies kept alive back at the lab while their consciousnesses roamed the streets paired with one of the three people trained to work with them: the Quasar Force. They had a life span of up to two weeks because soon after that their brains, left in a coma-like state, would begin to liquefy. You see, working with beings from other cultures, other planets, is tricky. You can't just yell, "Freeze!" and expect them to fear Tazers or bullets or pepper spray if those things have no effect on them. The Quasars, convinced they're only dreaming, are pretty fearless whether they're facing down an enraged, thirty-foot Tauran, trying to calm a five hundred pound, eight and half foot tall Leonid, or going head to head against a ten foot long, shapeshifting Capricorn. I mean, who'd be afraid of anything if you could fly like Superman, or melt through walls and floors like Caspar the Friendly Ghost? What could stop you if you could become invisible at will, had telekinetic abilities like Carrie, or could suddenly sprout up as tall as King Kong?

What's to stop the Quasars from running amok and taking over the world? Well, just like the rest of us when we dream, they're not the brightest bulbs in the package. They sometimes say and do odd things, they're not known for their amazing attention spans, and if they're distracted enough they even sometimes just wander away. That's where I come in. I'm a commander on the Quasar Force, badge 003. While they're being brainwashed or hypnotized or whatever it is they go through, the candidates are pre-programmed with a crush on their handlers to be. That makes them loyal toward us, makes them protective, and in my specific case makes everything a little more complicated….

You see, Amanda, Quasar 169, didn't leave her body to materialize as a sometimes solid apparition in the wakeful realm. Somehow her body transformed along with her mind. So there's no slowly dying body in a glass containment case. She's as physical as you or I. And we've been partners for a couple of years now—no one knows her lifespan although guesses of five to seven years get tossed around since that's how long the average person spends in REM, the dream-state, during an average lifetime. That's where the designation AA comes in. She was a mistake. They've made a couple more like her since then, but not without horrendous complications. Like most people, she doesn't appear exactly as she would before she was Quasared. We tend to think of ourselves as a bit better looking than we actually are, so our dream selves are almost more like the attractive actors who looked the most like us when they were casting our nightly plays. In her case, Amanda happens to look about fourteen. She would have had to've been eighteen to sign the consent forms, so I guess she's somewhere in her twenties, close to thirty now, but she looks fourteen…and that's where the awkwardness comes in. Remember when I told you the Quasars have crushes on their handlers? Remember when I told you that I'm telepathic? Geeze…it ain't easy working with a teenager who thinks she's in love with you when you're aware of her thoughts and emotions like they're your own. I sometimes tell people she's my daughter, my niece or whatever, but she doesn't always _act_ like it. So I sometimes have to try and convince myself that I don't have a crush on her—that it's only her feelings for me that I'm reacting to, shouldn't be reacting to…and then sometimes I find myself admitting that I've fallen hopelessly in love.

Why does she look fourteen? The scientists with 'Real say it might be that she had a low self-esteem, so she doesn't see herself as a confident, mature woman. Or maybe she possessed a playful, impish nature that made her feel childlike or kittenish, and that got translated as immature when she transformed. Perhaps she _was_ immature, had some kind of social development issues. Maybe she was a virgin. They say she experienced a nightmare right before she awakened, body and mind still united with her mind the dominating force of her existence. Maybe she felt helpless in that moment and regressed to a more innocent state. No one really knows what happened. They've been trying to induce nightmares into Quasars since, but as I said, the ones they've tried it on intentionally have turned out with serious mental issues and needed to be destroyed. Amanda is a walking dream. Nobody needs their nightmares running loose in the city, dream abilities intact, terrorizing people as they please.


	2. Chapter 2

2

There was a moment, early on in our relationship, when Amanda freaked me out by appearing in a TV show. Not just any TV show, but a _cartoon_ specifically. You see, the day they released her to me, we had a job to take care of. An alien murdered an interpreter and had to be hunted down and brought in before he hurt anyone else. So we were on the case before 169 was even tested to find out what all of her abilities were. She has a few I've never told the ArtReal scientists about, but she also keeps surprising me with new things I've never seen or experienced before. I was watching TV with her one morning and suddenly there she was, sharing air time with Bugs Bunny. Nobody saw it but me. Later on, some security cameras inside a mansion we were working in showed nothing but Bugs Bunny cartoons when their footage was replayed. Those cameras were not hooked up to any system that would allow them to pick up network television signals.

Usually, when Amanda watches TV or movies in a theater, she becomes almost totally enraptured with whatever she's watching whether it's Brad Pitt or some Disney princess, _Star Trek,_ or even the most boring infomercial ever created. I can turn the TV on and know she'll stay put until the sun collapses. It's a weakness I readily exploit. She's been known to wander off on her own before. Had to recover her from Montana once. I never realized the kinds of ideas I was putting in her head.

Then one Halloween I left her upstairs with the TV on so I could hand out candy to the neighborhood kids. I buy full-size and sometimes King-size brand-name stuff 'cause I make good money and was poor as a child. It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Not the candy—I love being the guy in that house who gives out really good stuff. Lots of channels show horror movie marathons Halloween night. It never occurred to me this might cause trouble.


	3. Chapter 3

3

The NYPD guys call us "bug cops" 'cause we work with aliens. If a job has any alien involvement at all, it gets turned over to StarNet. The police really don't like getting all hot and heavy into a case, then suddenly getting yanked off of it like a dog on a leash that just discovered something nasty to roll in. They also dislike the fact we carry sidearms and sometimes have to break the laws a little to accomplish our own jobs. Because I'd wanted to be one of them when I was a kid, I still knew a few and was friendly enough with them, mostly off the clock. So I was pickin' up a pie at my favorite pizza place when I overheard a table full of them discussing a rash of particularly gruesome murders that had begun Halloween night. The only connection between them seemed to be their astonishingly horrific nature. They rued the fact that the FBI would likely get involved if there was any evidence it turned out to be the work of one or more serial killers.

"Serial killers don't organize," one guy was insisting, gesturing as he spoke over a basket of glistening garlic knots. "I mean, sometimes you hear of someone training someone else to kill—usually someone younger like a kid relative—but unless you're talking about a cult or something, most serial killers work alone."

"I think it _is_ a cult," piped up a cop who must diet like crazy once a year to pass the annual physical, a very fine piece of mozzarella dangling from the side of his chin like he was trying to grow a one-hair beard. "None of the murders have been identical. I mean, there's no recognizable style. Serial killers find a way that feels good to them, something efficient they can refine like an art. These killings look like the work of several different, twisted, sadistic minds, each one trying to outdo the other."

Then one I'd thought was male until I heard her voice added, "Maybe it's a competition."

"It feels more like experimentation," said a solemn-faced guy with thinning hair. "There's also the fact we've found no prints of any kind, no trace of the killer or killers. That one that looked like the guy must've swallowed a live grenade? Like someone painted the walls with him after running him through a blender? How was there no foot print? No tread print made in blood? There's no sign of breaking and entering. Most of them had their doors locked."

"It _is_ New York," the youngest one pointed out.

"Thank you," thinning hair guy said. "There were what? Two that seemed to've been killed by something that ripped out their guts, but without any marks on their bodies aside from some explosive force? One whose insides were Jell-O like she'd been dropped from the top of a high-rise, but her exterior was intact. I mean, some of this stuff just doesn't make any _sense_."

To them, maybe, but I knew things about a specific alien we dealt with that I had yet to reveal to my supervisor.

"Ask the Bug Cop!" I heard, and watched everyone at the table turn my way.

I blinked at them blankly. "What?"

"You heard about these murders lately? Freaky stuff goin' on since Halloween?"

"Freakier than usual?"

One of the guys lifted a hand as if to wave then let it drift downward as he uttered a syllable of derision.

I persisted, "Like what?"

"Like nothin'," the female grunted. She told her comrades, "We don't even know for sure this stuff's connected."

"Somehow…it is," the youngest guy muttered.

"Thirty even," said a blonde behind the cash register, pushing a flat box toward me.

I looked skeptically at the box and lifted the lid to reveal the steaming disc inside. "What, for this? I said extra-large. This is a medium at best."

She shrugged, chewing gum, one hand waiting for a payment.

The cops at the table were laughing at me. I didn't care. Sounded like they could use a little levity.

"You're tellin' me this is an extra-large?"

She was maybe twenty. Hair chopped and messy. Makeup looked like she'd slept in it. I had no idea if her appearance was intentional or not. "We got large, we got extra-large, we got two XL. You wanna two X? Be another twenty-five minutes."

I raked my fingers through my wallet for cash. "Oh, I get it. Small is now large. Medium is extra. Large is what you call your double XL. Rip-off."

She smiled as she grabbed the bills from me. "Nobody sells a small pizza. Nobody's even seen a medium before. Maybe you're thinkin' of a personal lunch-size pizza."

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. Whoever heard of a fourteen inch pizza being called extra-large? Before I'd left for deep space ten years back on a special mission, people weren't trying so hard or so blatantly to rip other people off. I thought I'd be grateful and ecstatic to be back home. Often I was angered, amazed, and just plain frustrated. I held my palm out for the change and the girl smiled at me again as she dumped it in a plastic coffee can with the word TiPS scrawled on it in Sharpie. When she turned away to grab another pie, I reached in and fished out my ten. Psychically, I knew the cops had seen me do it. Irritable, I left no tip and stalked out the door. I'd gone half a block before I remembered I had left Amanda sitting on a bench along the wall, watching football on a TV mounted over the counter. With a grunt, I turned back to retrieve her.


	4. Chapter 4

4

I was doing push-ups in the kitchen when I heard a loud series of raps against my front door. Telepathic, I was intrigued to find it was a terrified neighbor. Amanda slid down my back as I rose to my feet and hurried to the front of the house. I unlocked the locks and flung the door wide to find myself confronted by a brunette in tears. She seized my left arm and shrieked, _"Hurry! Hurry!"_ as she tried to draw me outside.

"What is it?" I asked her. "What's wrong?"

"You're a cop, aren't ya?"

"StarNet," I told her.

"Come on!" she insisted, tugging me along. I was still clad only in dark blue sweatpants, no shirt, no shoes. She drew me across my yard, across the street, and two houses away. She had no idea if I could help her or not. She was desperate that someone see what was going on and try and stop it.

"My name's Alex," I panted as we ran.

"Rachael," she panted back, and my heart skipped a beat. Rachael was my ex-wife's name. "Rachael Dusek. It's my brother. He's been sick. I don't know what's happening to him."

Didn't sound like my area of expertise. "Have you called an ambulance?"

"Yes! Sometimes it takes forever," she complained as she twisted the knob and yanked me within. "You're like a cop, right?"

"Like…," I agreed.

She rolled her eyes. "Good enough. Follow me!"

I pursued her through a dimly lit living room with a TV showing some black and white film, an opened bag of pretzels spilled over the coffee table and onto the floor. We darted through a dark dining room, passed the warmly lit, but empty kitchen, and through a narrow corridor that smelled of laundry detergent to a back room I'd guess was a rec room where a sofa bed had been unfolded and made up for the invalid young man lying upon it. At first glance he looked like he'd been recently drawn out of the Hudson, covered in a wet sheen, skin greyish green. For just a moment I wondered if this was some goofy after-Halloween prank, but his sister, Rachael, was so panicked her strong emotions were making my own heart race. "Jakob?" she called, pushing down on the thin mattress and bouncing it a little. Jakob's head lolled lifelessly. _"Jakob?"_ She rested the back of one hand against his cheek and broke into wild sobbing that threatened to overpower me. It was difficult for me to keep control under traumatic circumstances. I was very tuned into the girl's emotional state and gritted my teeth to bring the focus back on myself before I tried to telepathically read her brother.

Rachael staggered backward, her face twisted in a rictus. "He's so _cold!"_ she wept, her words so thick with tears and terror she was nearly unintelligible. _"Oh my God!"_

All I could detect from him was a weird gritty, inky, smoky residue…something that made me think of dying embers. I touched his clammy cheek lightly, then let my fingers drift to the edge of his coverings. I pulled them back slowly, yanking them back up when I'd seen something odd. I swallowed and asked the girl, "Could you get me some towels?"

"Towels?" she repeated, her voice torn with emotion. "Is he all right? Is he _alive?_ "

"Fresh towels," I told her softly. "And a jug of water."

"Jug?"

"Pitcher? Some good-sized container? I'll need some hot—not boiling—and some room temperature. Can you get that for me?"

She looked confused, but hopeful as she sucked snot out of her sinus passages and swallowed, choking a little. She wiped at her wet face with the backs of her wrists and she fled. I had no use for the things I'd asked for. I just didn't want her to see what I wanted a better look at.

He was lit by two side table lamps. I flicked a wall switch and was rewarded with ceiling light. He was so close to dead only a psychic like me would know he had any life in him at all. I drew the covers back and felt my breath catch as I gazed upon his badly bruised body. It looked like he'd gone parachuting without a parachute. His form was mottled splotches of black, grainy purple-red, green yellow, with blue lace connecting everything. He was wearing only his underwear, and as I watched, blood began to stain the front of it. I let my gaze travel upward and saw his lips part, a watery red fluid seeping past the corners. His eyelids eased up slightly and a green-tinged fluid leaked free of the outer corners.

Near the bed were a box of tissues, a wastebasket full of balled up tissues, a damp washcloth overlapping a saucer, a cold cup of herbal tea, a bottle of flu medicine with the prerequisite plastic shot glass beside it, a thin green residue in the bottom. This kid had been suffering from a virus, not a rabid pack of wild football players. I heard his sister in the kitchen and reached for the covers, to draw them back up again. Despite the seasick green coloration, it was the most normal part of him to look at. It was a relief when the weird, itchy, sandy sensation inside his mind petered to nothing. I exhaled and sagged a little, glad to bring my focus back into myself. I shuddered and straightened, then bent enough to smooth the covers down around his jaw. A bulge rose swiftly from beneath the covers and seized my throat as I jerked backward. Thin blanket and sheet flowed up in front of my face while I grabbed at whatever held me and heard a gravelly voice say, _"Thank you, Bug Boy!"_ My hands closed on fabric I tugged away from my torso. Nothing had me. My heart was pounding and I stared at the kid on the bed, my breathing fast and shallow.

He was still dead, but his head had turned toward me, his eyes wide with terror. A foamy yellow green thickness bubbled up and overflowed his mouth.


	5. Chapter 5

5

"He had pizza for dinner?"

"That was mine," I confessed.

"It's your puke I stepped in?" asked the paramedic.

"Sorry," I told him, still holding the miserable girl.

We sat on the sofa in the dimly lit living room, the volume on the TV muted, pretzels crushed into the carpeting where we'd stepped on them. I held her as she clung to me, sobbing uncontrollably. The paramedic had brought the box of tissues from Jakob's sick room. Rachael preferred one of the towels she'd fetched for me.

I was thinking back to the cops I'd seen earlier in the day. It was imperative that I get the imagery of my last few seconds with Jakob out of my mind because I needed to stay calm so I could handle the frantic girl.

She pulled away from me enough to sniffle and admit, "I've heard of people…dying…from the flu before, but…I always thought was old people, or sick babies, or, or, the really weak…."

That's how I knew she hadn't seen his horribly discolored body. "The doctors will examine him…they'll figure out what…what happened," I assured her quietly.

She draped her arms around my neck and wept against my bare shoulder. "I'm…I'm so sorry we had to meet this way."

"'sokay," I told her, lightly stroking her hair. She'd had it pulled back into a velvet-covered elastic, but most of it had pulled loose, so I gently removed the fabric from her hair. "Your parents will be home soon?"

"My…? Oh, God…" She drew away from me and sniffled again. Her eyes were swollen and red-rimmed, mascara stained beneath her lower lashes. For the first time I realized she must be in her early twenties. She was old enough to own the place herself. "My _mom_ ," she blurted, the last word erupting as a high-pitched wail. I watched her drop her face into her hands and start weeping anew. Her strong emotions were exhausting me. I didn't want to seem rude, but I really couldn't linger there much longer or I'd be reduced to a sobbing lump of uselessness myself.

"Rachael?" came a hesitant voice from the doorway and another young woman walked in, wary, her features pinched with concern. She knew she'd never seen me before and her brows lowered. "What's going on?"

I said, "Alex Roglitz. StarNet. I'm her neighbor. Her brother…was very sick, so she came and got me."

The girl nodded, looking me over, thinking I was old, but not bad looking. "Is he all right?"

Rachael looked at the girl, and her face told her everything she feared was about to be revealed.

"Oh my God!" the girl squeaked, one hand fluttering to her mouth as she reached for her friend and sat beside her. "What happened? Oh my God! What happened to Jakob?"

Rachael collapsed into her friend's arms and I slowly rose, exhaled to compose myself, then stretched and cracked my knuckles as a gurney was wheeled outside. "Can you stay with her?" I asked the girl.

"We're, like, practically cousins," she answered. "Yeah, yeah. Let me grab my phone, call my dad. He's a doctor."

I nodded. "I'm just a couple houses away if you need anything."

"We'll be fine," she replied, sniffling too. "I've got her. You can go. Thanks."

My eyes widened. _"Thank you, Bug Boy,"_ echoed through my memory. Had I really heard that? Had those been Jakob Dusek's last words? But he'd been dead when I thought I'd heard that…or had I heard it at all? Maybe it was something I'd picked up psychically from someone else. Someone in the vicinity. But who would think such a thing? And why had the covers flown up around me? It felt like I'd been grabbed…but there'd been nothing there. Imagining it. Must have spooked myself. The covers had caught on my hand somehow and I'd yanked them back and toward me. I emerged from the house running a hand through my mussed hair. Flashing lights disoriented me for a second. A cop standing on the lawn turned my way.

"This your place?"

"Nah. I live 'cross the street."

"You got any I.D. on ya?"

"Yeah, I keep my wallet in my ass crack while I'm working out."

The guy's eyes narrowed and his head cocked slightly. "I seen you before?"

"Maybe."

He was evaluating my appearance: physically fit, big guy, no tats or piercings, very short hair. "You're not a cop, are ya?"

"StarNet."

He brightened. "Bug Cop!"

"Yeah," I grunted. "I'm just a neighbor. Can I go home now?"

He cast his gaze along the rows of houses. "You that one drives the Lamborghini?"

"I'd like to go home now. Shit, shower, shave. It's late." My stomach growled loudly. "Oh, yeah, and I lost my dinner in there, too."

"You know the Duseks well?"

"Just met 'em. The girl anyway. She came and got me. Called nine one one, then got me. Thought I was a cop."

He smirked. "Told her you're a Bug Cop?"

I shook my head. "No. Told her I'm with StarNet."

"Bug Cop."

"That joke just slays me every time I hear it."

He snorted. "I know where ya live. I need ya, I'll get up witcha. Go on home then. They're packin' up."

"Gee, thanks, Officer," I told him in my best Wally Cleaver tone. "Sure wish I could be a real cop like you someday."

"Get the hell outta here wiseass," he replied, a big grin on his face while he mentally pegged me as a mere garden-variety asshole.


	6. Chapter 6

6

My eyes shot open and I felt the sweat begin to cool on my skin. It would take a while for my heart to stop racing. My room was dark, the house silent but for the dull roar of traffic warming up and the occasional aircraft overhead. I had struggled free of the sheets and blanket in an effort to get cool during my sleep. Now I waited for my core temperature to sink back into normal range as I replayed fragments of the dream I'd just had.

As a guy who works for a para-policing agency in tandem with a dream research facility, I know things about dreams, about interpreting them. They very rarely seem to predict the future, but often give you some idea of how things are falling into place around you in your everyday life. In my dream I saw a dark room beyond a slightly open door down a long, dark hallway. As I moved closer to the door, I was able to make out a shadowy figure on the other side, wearing light colored clothing like maybe pajamas, and the glitter of an eye caught my attention. I heard someone breathing heavily, but trying to hide it. Before I made it to the door, I felt someone grab my right wrist and turned to see nothing but the section of hall I'd just walked. It went on and on for a very long distance, and I got the impression I was in some kind of a hospital or even a sanitarium. A trickle of chill fear coursed along my left side, and I stood breathing heavily as if I'd been running, the world made up of blue-grey shadows and pale light. I looked down at the floor and thought of how cold the tiles were on my bare feet, noticing I was wearing pale pajama bottoms myself. Then I heard a loud roar and a warm orange glow erupted from almost behind me. I turned to see a weird world of web-like struts and walkways, long cables and beams, all in black or silhouetted. Somewhere beyond the red walls and light orange gold glow was a furnace of some type and I didn't know why, but I kind of thought it was a crematorium. Then the dead kid I'd seen earlier that night, Jakob, moved into my peripheral vision and I was afraid to look directly at him. I started shaking in place, not sure where I should go or what I should do, and I could make out that thick, cottage cheese-like goo erupting from his orifices. I dropped my gaze and saw the stuff flowing across the few inches of floor between us toward my feet and I jumped and kept hopping, certain my feet were being burned, but also knowing they were not. I smelled a sharp tang of singed pork and felt my heart racing in my chest. "This is a nightmare," I told myself, recognizing the symptoms, and trying to will myself calm as I closed my eyes and stood still. I felt the kid lightly poking at my arm, felt the warm ooze work its way over my toes and between them, scalding me until I jumped and finally opened my eyes.

I dealt with dead bodies in my line of work now and then. Not as often as say your average New York City cop might. I had even been the cause of a few of them in my time. I really didn't care for the experience, even if it satisfactorily stopped something really bad from continuing, and I'd often consoled myself by telling myself that people that bad were likely to meet a gruesome end anyway, and better I take care of them when I was able than let them continue their nefarious ways. Of course, Jakob had been an innocent. Maybe that's why his death bothered me more. Then I remembered that weird, ashy, gritty sensation I'd experienced while tapping into his mind. I don't suffer from synesthesia. I shouldn't be describing a mental connection with adjectives like that, but there was something really freaky weird about it that just wouldn't leave me alone.

So I sighed loudly, eased out from beneath the remaining covers, stood, stretched and listened to the expected pops of awakened joints. Amanda remained asleep, which is weird because she doesn't require it. I think she just does it because I do and there's nothing else for her to get into. I'd tried making her sleep on the sofa downstairs and in the guest room, but always woke with her beside me anyway. I'd even tried sleeping on the downstairs sofa and in the guest room with the same result. I guess it's part of the programming they did to get her to feel protective of me.

Rubbing at my eyes, I yawned and trudged past the mirror, always feeling strange about seeing myself in it when it was too dark to really make out details, then stopped by the chair in the corner to grab my robe and pull it on. I exited silently and headed downstairs into my cool, dark living room. One of the benefits of owning only black or white furnishings was that even in the dark, I could still make out all the expected shapes and shadows. I yawned again, scratching at the hair on the back of my neck before I padded into the kitchen and hit the lights and nearly had a heart attack. Amanda was sitting on a counter, watching me with that slight smile on her face, bright-eyed, every hair in place. I shook my head as I moved around her, making coffee.

"Day?" she asked me, squinting back at the dark living room. "Night?"

"Morning," I grumbled, my voice a little rough. I cleared my throat and opened the 'fridge so I could stare at the contents and see if any ideas sprang out.

"Early," she commented.

"Eeyeah."

She had descended from the countertop as silently and mysteriously as she had beaten me down the stairs. She watched carefully as I withdrew eggs from the refrigerator, a package of Canadian bacon, a wedge of brie, and some rendered lard. There were bagels from a deli in town in the microwave. I removed one from the bag and sliced it on my maple cutting board. The kitchen soon smelled like coffee, which cheered me before I'd even poured a mug. I didn't ask the kid if she was hungry. She could manufacture stuff out of thin air. At one point I'd tried eating her dream-foods, but quickly learned they ceased to exist once she forgot about them, leaving me ravenous. She could subsist on her self-manufactured stuff, real food, or nothing at all indefinitely.

After I'd cooked and assembled my sandwich, I carried it on a small plate into the living room, dropped onto the sofa and set the plate on my belly, the mug of coffee resting on one thigh. I stared at the TV until it came on. It's no magic trick, no amazing psychic ability; Amanda saw me staring at it and telekinetically turned it on.

News. Boring. I ate, drank, but felt myself losing energy again. I'd thought I'd just stay up. I'd thought wrong. I finished my sandwich, drained my coffee, felt myself slouch farther into the white cushions. My eyelids were heavy. I figured another mug of joe might kick start me, but was too tired to get my lazy ass up and get one.

"Another mysterious death occurred during the night," a woman was saying, and I realized they were doing a live shot just a few houses away. "Which brings the total so far to seven. That's seven unexplained deaths since Halloween. I'm in the Riverside Park subdivision-"

I sniffled and tried to sit up a little, spilling bagel crumbs down my side and fumbling the coffee mug. The mess didn't concern me. Amanda could make things like crumbs and stains vanish upon request. The woman went on to say that the police weren't saying there was a connection, but that they were indeed investigating. She rattled off a list of names and described alleged causes of death before a clip of an interview with a cop was shown. I'd sat up to lean forward over my lap when the screen showed an image of a dog playing with a ball at some animal shelter event. Another woman's voice repeated the reporter's name a couple of times before we saw a shot of colored bars and digital numbers, followed by a view of the anchors' set back at the station.

"Well, we're having difficulties, but we'll go back to Grace as soon as we can."

The view switched to her co-anchor, a guy in a dark red suit with a dark green shirt and fedora on his head. He was looking down with his head lowered as if at some scripts or something when his gravelly voice said, "What do _you_ think, _Alex_?"

I jolted and my plate slid off my abdomen and my coffee mug tumbled free of my lax fingers to the floor. There was a car commercial on TV. It was daylight. How long had I been asleep? I turned to look at Amanda who was curled in a chair, staring raptly at the television screen. "TV _off_ ," I commanded sternly and it went black as she turned her attention to me. I stood and brushed crumbs from my side. Some cold coffee had spilled on my right leg. "Clean this up," I mumbled, waving my index finger like a magic wand as I stalked off to clean up the kitchen.


	7. Chapter 7

7

I was in the shower when something seized me and I was abruptly outside of the tub and curtain, moving through my bathroom, feet dangling. I uttered a quick syllable of alarm, closed my eyes, turned my head to the side and raised my hands in self-defense when the door came at me, and then we were in the bedroom, moving through my bed like it was a wheat field and not a Sealy. "Put me down!" I growled.

"Doorbell!" said the kid who was carrying me.

"I need clothes!"" I told her, and she set me down, then went for my closet and opened it so I could choose something appropriate to receive company in. Feeling very peculiar and not in any good way, I allowed my gaze to drop and saw I was still partially embedded in my bed and coverings. I mentioned calmly, "You can pass through solids. I can't. Little help, please?"

Amanda walked through the bed like it was an illusion and took my hand, allowing me to pass through solids also. I nodded briefly once I was free, turning to see the still closed bathroom door behind me. "Shut the shower off?" The sound ceased. I realized I was already dry and wondered if all the water from my body was now running down the shower curtain I had been pulled through or on the inside of the bathroom door. The kid had seen me naked before, so I didn't try and hide anything. I withdrew a pair of jeans while she hurried down the stairs, urging me to move quickly. The fact that she hadn't answered the door herself told me it was a stranger. I threw out a psychic scan and found vague familiarity. The girl from the night before was out there with someone else she knew.

I took the time to grab a T-shirt and tug it on as I jogged down the stairs and bounced up to the door. "Hang on!" I called, disengaging locks. I was very surprised to be confronted with tote bags and a wonderful aroma. "Hi," I said.

"Mr. Alex?" spoke the shorter woman from behind an armload of something that looked heavy.

"Let me get that," I told her, bending to take the large bag from her. "Hi. Just Alex is fine. Alex Roglitz. And you are?"

"I am Rachael and Jakob's mother, your neighbor. May we come in?"

I stepped backward, allowing them access to my home.

The older woman was short and a little on the heavy side. She wore a semi-transparent nubby black sweater thing over a snug, plain top of dark wine, a length of gold beads hanging from a gold chain about her neck. She had on shiny black pants and some kind of shiny black sandals with low heels. Her toenails were painted to match her fingernails. She removed her huge sunglasses as she looked around, and her face was fleshy and matronly with distinctive Latina coloration and features. "So nice," she said, walking past me with a huge tote bag dangling by her side. "You are married?"

"I was," I answered, wondering why I was holding her stuff for her. Then Rachael turned to me and smiled primly, holding out her bags for me to take. She trailed her mother into my living room and I maneuvered the door closed with my foot.

"Very classy," said Mrs. Dusek, eyeballing everything and finding it plain, but not too clinical. "You like black and white? You pick out this colors?"

"Ah, yeah," I agreed, gazing around.

"What happened to your wife?"

"She, uh…she died. Like…I think just over a month ago."

"Oh! I am so sorry! Here, let me take that!" she said, retrieving her stuff from me and gesturing for her daughter to do the same. They wandered into the kitchen and began to unpack. "I have brought you something…just a little something. For thanking you for coming to my daughter last night."

"Really?" I said, eyebrows high. "Wow. Uh, thank you. That…is really not necessary."

She gestured at me like I was an idiot for saying such a thing. Large Tupperware containers emerged, a bag of ice, amazing smells. I stood bewildered until the daughter smiled at her mother, who nodded, and then came at me to embrace me, holding me tightly as a storm of emotions blew through her. I swallowed, not really the touchy-feely type, and then made myself relax my arms around her lightly while she clung to me, appreciating my bulk and warmth, noting I smelled freshly showered.

"No one else could come so soon," her mother explained, as I found myself being slowly twisted a little back and forth. Was I supposed to rock her? I patted her back in what I hoped was a comforting manner and her grip increased, and her body trembled as she fought back tears.

Of course they had no idea that I'm psychic. It was always a very uncomfortable thing for me to linger around people who were very upset or enraged or who were even overly giddy. I'd always pick up on it and it would affect my mood, also. Crying women are the worst for me to deal with because I feel compelled to help them any way I can, but bursting into tears along with them usually just made the situation awkward. I turned my head helplessly until I spotted Amanda on the stairs, staring at us. She's extremely jealous. I leaped at the opportunity to get the teenaged girl off of me. "Amanda! We have visitors!"

Rachael lifted her head from my chest, sniffled, and pushed long strands of hair back from her puffy, red-splotched face. "Your daughter?" she asked, her voice thick and wet.

It was the easiest lie. "Come here, kid. Meet the Duseks. They're our neighbors."

One eyebrow high, the Quasar descended, looking kind of like a cat that is trying to decide if the distraction before it is distasteful or not. She strode toward us and I reached for her, drawing her in with a hand between her upper shoulders. She felt stiff beneath my touch, her gaze never wavering from the stranger who still held me.

Rachael sniffled and wiped at her cheeks before offering a hand. "Hi, Amanda. I'm Rachael. I live a few houses down on the right. How are you?"

It was the name that screwed everything up. Amanda had been jealous of my ex-wife, Rachael. Rachael had been pressuring me to remarry her after I got her pregnant. She'd been staying at the house, driving both of us nuts—playing little dominance games with my partner, saturating me with her crazy mood swings while her hormones were all out of whack. I'd been planning on doing it for the benefit of our children, but she'd experienced complications while I was away on a mission, and I'd only made it back in time to have her die in front of me. I'd avoided saying anything about her in front of Amanda after the funeral, and had quickly eliminated her belongings from my house. Now here was another Rachael, lithe, lovely, youthful, and still holding onto me like I was the biggest floating object in her stormy sea.

" _Rachael?"_ The word emerged like a slight breeze through a frozen tree near to breaking with the weight of icicles.

I quickly mussed the Quasar's hair and grabbed her by the back of the head, smothering her against my side in a sort of bear hug. "She's _special_ ," I whispered to Rachael Dusek, whose eyes widened and lips parted into a little _o_.

"Hi, Amanda," she tried again, releasing me to focus her attention on the other girl.

Mrs. Dusek looked at me from across my kitchen and mouthed, _"Special?"_

I nodded big, smiling. It was an often-used lie that eliminated a great deal of explaining in most social situations.

"You dear, sweet man!" Mrs. Dusek declared. "Oh, I am so sorry! You've been through so much!"

I smiled awkwardly, trying to turn with the Quasar to keep her from getting hold of our houseguest.

"I love your hair, Amanda!" Rachael exclaimed, grabbing hold of the waist-length black strands. "So soft! So pretty! If you want, I could braid it for you."

The kid turned beneath my arm and her hair seemed to drift away and tatter like ink dripped into a glass of water, reforming once it was beyond the other girl's reach. I stopped breathing for a second, but the eerie, big smile didn't leave me. Rachael stepped backward, bumping into the entranceway, and took a step sideways, uncertain as to what had just occurred. She looked down at her hands and turned them a few times, then smiled nervously back at me.

"Why don't you go watch TV?" I asked Amanda, using one hand to tilt her face toward me so she'd stop staring at the girl she thought was some sort of a rival.

Those unnaturally pale blue eyes, like chips off an iceberg, found me and held for an uncomfortable moment. I broke the spell by bending to kiss her forehead and mussed her hair again before I gave her a friendly shove back into the living room. The TV came on of its own accord, but neither houseguest realized she hadn't used a remote to activate it.

And this was one reason I preferred not to entertain visitors.

Mrs. Dusek covered the table and part of the countertop with food containers. I kept politely exclaiming that she'd gone to too much trouble, that none of this was necessary, but gleaned from her mind that she had cleaned out a bunch of leftovers from a Halloween party, preparing her refrigerator to receive the food gifts friends and family would bring after her son's funeral. In fairness, she had prepared an enormous frittata while she'd been unable to sleep. It was fantastic, thick and fluffy with savory spices and vegetables sharing space with chunks of a mild chorizo.

"There's enough food here for a party!" I exclaimed just to see their reactions.

Eyes met and the mother told me, "We just had one a few nights ago. For the kids. Of course Jakob wasn't feeling well…but he wore a _Star Wars_ T-shirt and carried a roll of toilet paper on the end of a…what are those big glowing stick things, Rachael?"

"Lightsaber," the girl answered quietly, remembering the night.

"Yes. He had toilet paper on a lightsaber so he could blow his nose. And all his friends came and Rachael's…."

I wondered how many of them were now out of school, sick. "Wow," I commented, trying to pretend to eat while Mrs. Dusek continued to encourage me.

"Yes, my Jakob was a really big fan of that horror stuff. Like _Star Wars_ and Jason and what else did he like, Rachael?"

I could tell she was trying to keep her daughter preoccupied so she wouldn't become self-absorbed in mourning. Trying to make her remember the fun things about her brother and not his disturbing end. The girl was only picking at a small piece of frittata. " _Star Wars_ isn't horror."

"No, of course not. But he likes that Michael Meyers stuff, oh and the classics like _The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy_."

Rachael rolled her eyes. I learned from her that her brother had not been a fan of the old horror black and whites. She saw me watching her and smiled shyly as she cast her gaze downward.

"Oh, Mr. Alex, you must eat! You must keep up your strength! All that you've been through!"

I told the woman, "I'm okay-" and she plopped another hunk of eggs on my plate.

"So, you are a policeman?" She nodded as she said this like I was obliged to play along.

"Uh, not really. Sort of. I work with StarNet."

"Ah, StarNet," she repeated, nodding. "You could get a job there, mija. You could one day maybe have a nice house like this."

The girl looked startled. I wished her mother would leave her alone to mourn as she needed, but the woman was strong-willed and expected her daughter to be the same. She let her eyes rove my expensive, though modestly furnished kitchen/dining area.

Mrs. Dusek prodded, "Maybe one day you could find a good man like Mr. Roglitz here, get a nice job, live like a princess."

The girl's eyes nearly made it to my face before she scowled like she'd bitten into a stray peppercorn.

"My girl. So young. So pretty. She was supposed to go to college, but now she thinks she'll go late."

I was already weary of my visitors, and jumped up quickly when I heard the phone ring. "Pardon me," I said, escaping quickly for the living room. Amanda sat with her arms crossed over her chest, frowning at the TV, an empty plate and fork on the coffee table near her. "Hello?" I listened to the caller. "How does this concern me?" I looked down at my T-shirt and jeans. I'd spilled a little food on the shirt. "Right now?" I stepped back and gazed into the dining area where the women sat, one smiling and loading my plate with more food, one crumpling into silent sobs. It was then I realized that Mrs. Dusek needed Rachael to be strong so she wouldn't break down in front of me herself. "But I have company-" The caller was insistent. "Right away," I grumbled, then disconnected the call. "Ladies?" I asked from the entranceway. "I'm really very sorry to have to tell you this, but I am needed at work right away. Something's come up and I have to go right now."

The daughter perked up and turned toward me. The mother looked sad. "Oh, but you must finish your breakfast, Mr. Alex."

I was so stuffed between the food they'd brought and the bagel I'd eaten before my shower I thought I might pop like a water balloon. I smiled big again. "Take your time. Just lock up behind you when you go. This is very rude, I know, but it's pretty important."

"Oh, it's not rude," the woman who thought I was being rude told me. She gave me an understanding smile and I could sense her excitement at the prospect of maybe nosing around my place a little after I left. "Your work is very important! You go! We'll clean up!"

I shook my head. "I'll clean up when I get back. You've been more than gracious. Please take your time and I promise when I get back…I'll uh, uh…I'll-"

"Go," Mrs. Dusek said, flopping a hand toward me and nodding. "We have everything under control here."

I gave her a thumbs-up and grabbed boots from the closet, my keys, coat and hat. No socks, but I didn't feel like running upstairs. I didn't even feel like bending over to force my feet into my boots because I was afraid I'd have to clean vomit off of them. Thinking of vomit made me think of Jakob Dusek's oral discharge, and I emitted an awful sound, cutting it off abruptly when I clapped a hand over my mouth. Amanda, concerned for me, was suddenly at my side. I swallowed, turned my face away so I could exhale, and then grunted, "Get us in the car, now." I stretched back in the seat, trying to offer my overstuffed stomach some room. "Oh, God. Too much. Too full."

"Okay?" asked my partner, leaning toward me from the passenger seat.

"Two things," I told her, then paused as I felt another wave of nausea hit me. "Okay…oh, God… _bleh_ …Okay. Two…first, put us in the parking lot at work, _with_ the car, please. And second…" I pointed at my middle. "I ate too much. Can you do something about this?"

She reached over and her hand covered mine before pushing gently through it into my abdomen, solid through solids. I jerked a little with discomfort before relaxing to her touch. I had no idea what she was doing, and maybe neither did she, but it felt fantastic and I let slip a soft groan of pleasure followed by a loud, obnoxious burp. Disgust assaulted me and I opened my eyes to see one of my co-workers, Geoff McKenna, standing near my window, looking grossed out. I smiled weakly at him and twiddled my fingers his way while slowly withdrawing the Quasar's hand from my insides. "Uh…good job," I told her and opened the door as Geoff moved clear of it, emerging into grey autumn daylight in the StarNet/ArtReal parking lot.


	8. Chapter 8

8

"You're lucky I'm psychic so you don't actually have to ask me what I was doing back there."

McKenna sighed as he pushed open the first set of doors. "I almost walked into the side of your car. It wasn't there, then suddenly it was. If you're going to use Amanda to, to _teleport_ yourself from place to place, why bother bringing the car with you?"

I trailed him through the second set of doors into the reception area. "I had company over. I had to leave suddenly. I didn't want them to walk out of the house and see the car there after I told them I had to report to work."

The taller, older man shook his head. "Then why didn't you just drive the car?" He waved politely at the two receptionists as we moved toward the nearest corridor.

"I had a…bit of an emergency I needed taken care of."

"You have Amanda performing surgery now?"

"No. I just ate too much."

He simultaneously wanted to hear my story and didn't want to know about it at all. "Then just don't eat so much."

"I couldn't help it," I told him, turning right automatically because I knew where he was going. "I got up early and ate, then my neighbors brought food over."

"You don't know how to politely turn down food? Wait—why were your neighbors bringing food over? You actually know your neighbors?"

"Not usually," I admitted. We paused long enough at the door to the Quasar Force Officer's Lounge for him to turn the knob and push it open. I trailed him within. "Their son died last night."

"Really?" This genuinely intrigued him. "What happened?" He moved toward the coffeemaker and began to set it up.

"He was just some kid. Well, a teenager. Older teenaged kid. Had the flu. That's what his family thought. But when I saw him, he looked like he'd fallen off the top of the Empire State Building."

Geoff's brow creased as he measured out coffee grounds. "He exploded?"

"No, like inside. He looked really, terribly bruised. And greenish. His skin looked like he'd drowned. And then this, this cottage cheese-looking stuff was pouring out of his mouth-"

"He choked on cottage cheese?"

"No. I don't think so, but it smelled awful. I actually lost my dinner. What do you think it was?"

Geoff turned toward me like I was clinically insane. "I'm a veterinarian. I have no idea what you're describing."

"But," I persisted, "it wasn't the flu."

"I wouldn't think any of those were the more common symptoms."

"And then there was his psychic signature…the way he felt to me when I tried to read him…."

The retired veterinarian's hobby was parapsychology and the occult. His hands stopped the coffee making process as his attention fixed fully on me. "You knew he was dying, and you linked with him psychically?"

"Well, I wasn't sure he was dying. At first. Until I… _felt_ what was in his head. And I can't really emphasize that enough because I don't feel anything but emotions or pain when I link up with someone, but I could feel…in my head…that he was somehow…burnt up inside. Like I was sensing grit from the fireplace, dying embers, something…dry and black and horrible."

"A memory?"

"No…you've heard of synesthesia? Where people see sound and hear colors and shit?"

"I know of it," he said, nodding, his back to the coffeemaker as he leaned against the counter it sat on, his arms folded across his chest.

"So, it was like I had that," I said, still having problems describing exactly what I'd sensed. "But I've never had that. How would I know what it's like?"

He suggested, "You've probably read the mind of someone who had it, but it wasn't so pronounced that you even suspected they had it. Whatever. Look…this is fascinating. Like he was anticipating hell…"

"No," I said. "You're not getting it. It was more like…he was somehow all burnt up inside and I suddenly blundered into what was left of his brain…the last things his mind had been aware of…" I frowned, wishing I could link with Geoff in a way that would allow him to read my mind and feel it for himself.

"You think…maybe he'd been in a bad fire? An explosion?"

I exhaled loudly. "I don't know what I think."

He considered for a moment. "It really bothers you."

"It was…nightmarish," I conceded.

"Did you have a nightmare afterward?"

I tried to recall the dream I'd had before waking up too early. "Yeah…a long hallway in like an old psych ward or something…and then there was fire. Somewhere close by…a big, yellow glow, everything else in red…and that kid was there beside me and he puked up that cottage cheese shit and it was burning me…."

McKenna said, "It just sounds like a rehash of what had recently bothered you. The dead kid's condition. The…the fire, ashy, weird burning sensation."

I nodded. "I know. It doesn't mean anything. And then this morning, on the news…"

He turned toward me again and waited. "What about the news?"

"Was there something on the news this morning about…people dying weird since Halloween?"

"There has been something lately. On the news. But it all sounds like speculation."

I nodded and looked over at Amanda who had flopped into one of the overstuffed chairs and closed her eyes. "Speculation. Sure."

"It sounds plausible to you? That a handful of odd deaths are somehow related?"

"I dunno," I told him. "You ever gonna get that coffee made or what?"

He had just turned the machine on, but lowered his head and flicked the switch back off again. He glanced at his watch. "I guess we should just go to the chief's office. They might have coffee and doughnuts available."

"I hope so," I told him. "I'm starved!"

Again he looked at me, shook his head, and rolled his eyes.


	9. Chapter 9

9

No coffee. No doughnuts. If I had to guess what Amanda had done to me, then I'd say she'd made the entire contents of my stomach disappear. Possibly everything that wasn't a vital part of me had vanished. I was freakin' ravenous and my stomach growled as we made room for everybody in the StarNet Briefing Lounge.

There were a handful of higher ranked Netcops in what they thought of as casual business attire, and what I thought of as Undercover Cop, and just a couple of uniformed cops of lower rank. I picked up on one of the majors wondering why there was a kid in the room with us. He thought McKenna had a kid, but she didn't resemble him. Amanda does not resemble me either, though she may have been able to pass as the possible offspring of my fair skinned, dark-haired brother. I sensed McKenna's irritation with the guy's attempt to get his attention and stared the major down. I'd seen him before, but didn't know his name. He grinned at me, wide-eyed, and kept trying to forcefully think to me, _"Is that that Quasar? That kid Quasar? Is she her? Is that the Quasar?"_ I offered him a withering gaze. He stared back while yelling in his head, trying to spell out each word for me, _"Aren't you the_ psychic _one? The guy who reads minds? Are you the mind reader? Can you hear what I'm thinking? Does it seem like hearing? In your head? Hey! HEY! No? It's not him? It_ is _you, isn't it? Don't be a prick—just respond to me! Wink or nod or cough or something."_

The man who was about to conduct the meeting had been surreptitiously observing the looks between us, and he finally slapped down the pen in his hand and looked back and forth between us blatantly. "Is there an issue, gentlemen?"

"Sir?" the major asked innocently.

I cleared my throat. "For those of you who haven't seen her in person before, this is Quasar 169," I announced, offering her a gentle push toward the table so everyone could get a good look at her. She bowed her head, brought her fingers to her lips and scooted behind me shyly. I smiled graciously while McKenna tried to suppress a grin.

"Thank you, Commander Roglitz," Captain Stevens said. At the mention of my rank, several of the Netcops felt surprise. It was funny how the Quasar Force was considered both Net and Real, yet we worked far more closely with the ArtReal scientists. We used to have the rank of captain, but during the time I was away in space, the rank was changed to allow Quasar Force officers to literally command any Netcops as we saw fit, on par with their own commanding officer. Geoff was another exception to the rule. Before he came along, there had never been a sergeant detective on either side of the facility. So he was Dr. McKenna, DVM (retired) and one of ArtReal's astrobiologists, and Sergeant Detective McKenna of StarNet. Most of the assembled didn't really know who either of us was, and now that I'd introduced my partner they were all distracted by her. "As most of you know, the reason I've called you here is because we lost one of our own yesterday afternoon. Corporal Schenker of StarNet was found deceased of mysterious causes at his father's birthday party. Some of you were friends of Louie, some of you worked alongside him on a couple of details. As is procedure, we are requesting that Commander Roglitz and Sergeant McKenna look into his death to make certain there was no alien involvement. After which, assuming there was none, his body will be turned over to the family to do with as they require. Now, those of you who were close to him may seek counseling from Drs. Shelton, Peek, or Kline on the clock. They have been advised of the situation and are at your disposal. I will need his superiors to divide up his workload amongst his colleagues or to take on aspects of it themselves until we have found a replacement for his position and involvement in any projects or cases that were underway. "

The man droned on. I was intrigued by the situation because I had never been involved in such an investigation before. Perhaps this was yet another new thing implemented during my decade in space. How many suspicious deaths had occurred that required such an inquiry? And while I tried to ponder my new role, the major continued to pester me, always at the edge of my thoughts like background music, but more obnoxiously so like the advertisements they play between songs on the radio. I was losing my ability to concentrate. I finally shot a glare his way and frowned sternly as my roiling stomach let out a low, long gurgle that silenced the captain. I'm sure my face registered something other than the looks of confusion everyone else wore. Except Geoff, of course, who had to turn aside and emit a soft cough followed by an inappropriate snort of merriment.

"Sorry," I mumbled. My stomach replied with a syllable that sounded a lot like Scooby Doo reacting with astonished puzzlement.

Even the captain was unable to suppress a chuckle. "No time for breakfast, Commander?"

" _No,"_ McKenna replied before I could speak, and the annoying major tried to yuk it up by mimicking my gastric query.

Stevens turned on him. "Go downstairs and find the Commander some food."

"Me?" He sounded almost exactly the same as he had when he'd made fun of me, and several people were unable to suppress snickers.

Snickers. I could've really gone for one of those right then…

"Just put some items on a tray and bring it back here."

"Me? But…I don't know what he likes."

"Please, Welbourne. Just go."

That he understood and met my eyes with ire. Nodding, he quickly departed and I could feel his rage as he mentally cursed me on his way to the cafeteria.

I blew air from between my lips. "Again, sorry."

"I apologize for him," Captain Stevens said. "It must be unpleasant sometimes to possess abilities such as yours."

Not everyone in the room knew I was telepathic. I flicked my brows upward and said, "I deal with it constantly. It's no big deal."

"But it is if it qualifies as unprofessional behavior."

Geoff was impressed with the man's comprehension of the situation.

I replied, "We can't start policing each other's thoughts."

"I suppose not. I will provide you with contact information, addresses, anything you need to begin your inquiry."

I turned to look at Geoff, assuming he'd been through his sort of thing before. He looked past me, tight-lipped. "Yes, thank you," I responded, grabbed Amanda by the arm and led her out of the conference room.

"What was going on back there?" McKenna asked once we were clear of the entire Net side of the building.

"What was his name? Welbourne? That's hilarious. Anyway, he suspected I was psychic and kept bugging the shit outta me with stupid questions and stuff."

"He was thinking them to you? Trying to anyway?"

"Oh, he was succeeding," I admitted. "It was like trying to barbecue in your backyard while a crazy neighbor screams at you from his window a couple a houses away."

"That's why you introduced Amanda?"

"He wasn't sure who she was."

"What a dick."

"Whoa!" I exclaimed, halting in a passageway on our way to the elevator. "That's some strong language coming from you!"

He shrugged off my jibe. "Let's get you fed. Again. Three breakfasts…y'know, you really need to take better care of yourself."

I pushed the button for the next floor down. "Aw! Do you care about me?"

He winced. "It's just that…with Amanda around, you often act like you believe you're indestructible or something. I think it's dangerous."

"Life with her _is_ dangerous."

"Be serious for a moment," he continued, waiting to make certain the elevator was empty before we boarded. "Dory and I have been concerned about you since Rachael died-"

"Did I tell you that's the same name as the girl whose brother died last night?"

"No. It's just coincidence."

"Yeah, but," I persisted, looking down at the Quasar who was staring at the floor tile pattern in the descending car, "she did _not_ like that one bit!"

"Alex, you told me she's extremely jealous. You see, this is the sort of thing I'm trying to make clear to you. You keep living your life like she's this magical safety net, but she has a mind of her own and you really need to watch what you say and do around her."

I gestured like I was masturbating and rolled my eyes. "I don't think neighbors bringing food over and over-eating qualify as death-defying acts."

"You keep pushing that envelope," he warned as the elevator came to a halt. "It'll tear one of these days."

I placed a hand atop Amanda's head like she was a podium with a bible on top and raised the other hand in what I thought was the Boy Scout gesture for sincerity. "I promise she'll be there with Scotch tape to patch it back up again."

"You can't make promises where she's concerned!" He trailed me down the corridor. "You know she's unpredictable! Did you forget that's how we met? You made her angry and she deserted you?"

"She won't desert me," I said, guiding her toward the cafeteria.

"Alex-"

"Geoff! Back off, okay? Leave me alone. I got this. It'll be all right." He dropped his face and trudged forward. I caught his arm as he tried to pass me. "Rachael's death didn't hit me as hard as you think, okay?"

"You were going to marry her."

"I didn't want to. It was more of a thing for the kids, y'know? I thought maybe that's what would be best for them."

"And you lost them, too," he reminded me.

He had no idea how messed up that aspect of the entire thing was. "Yeah," I agreed, dropping my gaze and nodding. He suspected there was a lie in there somewhere. "But I wasn't ready for them. Not for any of it. She came back into my life and just started taking over, started trying to control my future, my life. I went along with it because she was so convinced of it. Man, you have no idea how complicated this being psychic shit is. I didn't want to be with her. I wanted to be with Amanda." We hesitated as some co-workers passed between us. "My future is with her and no one else. I'm not meant to be tied down. What if I'd married Rachael and _then_ disappeared for nine years in space? My sister-in-law had me declared dead, remember? I-"

"Alex," he said firmly, raising his hands, but leaving them near my shoulders and not on them. "Shut up."

"Huh?"

"You're rambling. You're defensive. You're _hungry_. Shut up and let's get something to eat."

I cleared my throat. "Yeah. Sorry. Eat. You hungry, too?"

He shook his head as he walked by me. "A _psychic_ is asking me if I'm hungry. Hmm."

"Hey, ya don't gotta be a dick about it!" I called after him, trailing him into the large dining area filled with mouthwatering fragrances.

Major Welbourne was nowhere in sight.


	10. Chapter 10

10

McKenna and I met up at The Tripple Dekker later that day to compare notes. He'd gone to talk to the police about similar cases, and I had contacted the Capricorn ambassador to ascertain that the telepathic shapeshifters were in no way connected to the strange deaths before tracking down Schenker's girlfriend to see if she could shed any light on the situation. Geoff ordered a Greek salad sans the little potato salad bonus they often came with, a cup of lemon chicken orzo soup, and crusty Italian bread with an olive oil and herb dip. I ordered a shepherd's pie smothered in Irish cheddar with a side of cheesy garlic Texas toast. He asked for water with a slice of lemon in it. I requested a Coke.

"How'd it go?" I asked, tearing apart gooey, garlicky strips of buttery bread to pop in my mouth.

"The police weren't especially cooperative. No big surprise. I did a little research online and wasn't able to find any connections, but I did find lists of surviving relatives in the obituaries. I was able to contact a few people by phone. You'd be surprised how frank folk can be when they're trying to find answers, too." He withdrew a small notepad from a jacket pocket and flipped it open so he could squint at his own scribble. "Nothing unites them. Gender, age, ethnicity, beliefs. None of them knew each other. In every case the deaths were sudden, unexpected, and medically bizarre. Some of the victims appeared unscathed, others looked like they'd lost a fight with a rabid grizzly, and in a couple of cases the immediate surroundings also appeared disrupted as though the victim had thrashed about, perhaps experiencing seizures, maybe just acting out in their sleep."

"Any history of that?"

"No one was able to hazard any guesses. Shall we see if we can examine any of the corpses?"

I parted my hands with a piece of cheesy goodness in each one and reminded him, "Dinner?"

"Sorry. Should we go that far? Is it necessary?"

"You just want to, you twisted freak."

The older man grinned as he pinched off a piece of crust and swirled it through a little sauce bowl containing golden oil and colorful bits of plant matter. "I wasn't intrigued by any of this until we got involved."

"But you don't think there's a connection?"

"I don't, but we haven't exhausted all avenues yet."

I nodded. "No alien involvement. So, the whole thing probably gets yanked out of our hands, but I'm still curious…just because it's all so weird."

McKenna shook his head. "Our participation just came to an end."

"You're curious, too."

"Not as much as you are," he admitted.

"I spoke to the girlfriend."

"Schenker's girlfriend?"

"Duh. She works at Johnny's Quick Subs. Weird chick. I think they call 'em Goth."

"Okay," he nodded and lifted a fork to dig into the salad that had just been set before him.

I smiled at the waiter who placed a hot charger in front of me, the searing hot iron kettle atop it steaming and dripping Guinness gravy and orange cheese. "Thanks. Okay, so I spoke to her and she told me that she and Schenker are really big horror fans."

McKenna chewed, then shrugged, "Irony?"

"No. Not irony. Y'see, my neighbor's kid, this Jakob Dusek was a horror movie fan, too."

He looked sad for me until a memory popped into his forebrain and he mentioned while spearing cherry tomatoes, "One of the other victims was a horror film buff, too."

"Okay. First connection."

He told me, "The strongest connection being they were all human beings."

"Ha," I grumbled as I outlined the top of the little iron pot with my knife, severing the lines of cooling cheese scabs from their source. "Do we know for a fact that none of the others were horror fans?"

"What would that have to do with their gruesome deaths anyway?"

"Grasping straws," I told him, moving cheese from the sides of the pot to my mouth with my fork. It was a really good, sharp, nutty cheddar.

"Okay," he said, recalling more of what he'd learned. "I think one of the girls was known for attending fantasy conventions. There could be a horror link there."

"Like…sexual fantasies?"

"No, like _Star Trek_ and _Star Wars_ and things like that. Comic book characters and horror movies, Elvira and Wonder Woman, Conan the Barbarian, Superman and stuff."

"Weak," I said.

"Not necessarily."

"The whole thing's weak."

He mentioned, "At least three of the ones I did research on had attended or hosted Halloween parties."

"No way!" I blurted, feigning shock. "Right around Halloween?"

"You started this train of thought," he mentioned.

"A train to nowhere," I sighed.

"You should order food for her," he said, gesturing toward the Quasar with his fork. "She draws attention sitting there staring at the TV over the bar while everyone else at the table eats and drinks."

"Kid? You wanna Coke?" I asked her.

Amanda failed to acknowledge my presence while the Oilers showed the Devils a thing or two.

"I should spend my hard-earned money on food she doesn't need?"

McKenna told me, "Much as you care for her, it surprises me that you don't treat her better."

I stopped chewing and stared at him. "Excuse me?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "I'm sorry. Your relationship is unique. I can't honestly compare it to anything else…from…ever."

I worked at a bit of ground beef stuck between two molars with my tongue. "That's right. You can't. There's nothing like the two of us. Maybe you should just sit back and keep your mouth shut."

He coughed and reached for his napkin. He was thinking I was a little extra sensitive since my ex-wife's death. He was smart enough not to suggest it out loud.

I said, "You wanna treat her? Go ahead. She'll eat anything you set in front of her. Buy her a hamburger. Buy her a whole roast turkey, all the trimmin's. Buy her a God-damned Happy Meal you feel so sorry for the way I treat her."

He cast his eyes about at our closest fellow customers, decided they either hadn't noticed what was being said at our table or were too polite to show it. He knew I'd know if we'd become the center of attention, but under the circumstances I was unlikely to give a rat's ass. "My apologies," he said quietly. "I'm well aware of the fact that she doesn't require sustenance."

"Yeah, well," I grunted by way of my own apology. "Horror movies. Maybe. That's all we dug up. That's all we maybe got."

"Did you want to see the bodies?"

"Now there's another connection," I said sarcastically, "every damn one of them's dead." and I thought of my ex and not the kid who'd passed away in front of me just last night.

Geoff continued eating, wondering if he should offer himself for private counseling services should I need it, realizing he probably just had. He radiated weak warmth my way and I physically shuddered, then sighed.

"Ain't this place great?"

He wanted to ask if I shouldn't make more sensible choices for my diet, then reminded himself I was still in mourning. His eyes roved toward the Quasar and he saw there my best means of riding out the stress and grief I was under. Blinking, he thought, _You're the most difficult person I have ever had any kind of relationship with._

I snorted and went back to shoveling down my dinner. "Whatever."


	11. Chapter 11

11

In my dream I saw an old-fashioned bassinet in the room I'd been painting to use as a nursery. There was a large pink satin ribbon on the top of it, which was odd since my ex-wife, Rachael, had been pregnant with twins—a boy and a girl. The corners of the room were dark to the point they were indistinguishable from the black shadows that crouched in them. The ceiling was gone, and in its place were the rafters of my roof, gaping holes between them. A very long pull string dangled from above. I stepped forward and reached up to pull it, hoping to expel the darkness with some light, but all I saw was a shooting star streaking past the holes. When I looked down again, I was standing in some sort of an old barn.

There was straw on the ground, fresh, dry and dusty, but no animal smell. I moved toward the back of the structure where I saw a bit of the outdoors beyond a door that had been left ajar. The air was cooler outside and wind blew through the treetops, but failed to reach me. I felt overly warm and doffed the jacket I wore, unbuttoned my shirt partway and rolled up my long sleeves. Despite the refreshing cool air, sweat felt like a layer of insulating warmth against my skin. I walked over hard-packed earth interrupted with patches of matted, drying grass. There was a scarecrow before me, barely visible in silhouette against the dark tree line. I felt compelled to go to it. I needed to see its face.

A dog barked and I hesitated, but it hadn't sounded close. I continued walking and the breeze finally caressed the earth, flapping my shirt against my skin, throwing fallen leaves into a tizzy. There was a peculiar smell in the air like charred pork…like burning power lines. The hair at the back of my neck stood on end and the sweat streamed freely down my skin like melting cheese. I started running for the scarecrow. It was shaking badly like a stop sign in a bad storm. I thought I heard it making a rattling sound like a diamondback, but my mind returned to that empty bassinet and I stopped, bent over myself, gasping for breath. How far had I run? Was I that out of shape? A foot stepped into view, and I looked up at the scarecrow. It was just an old beat-up wide-brimmed hat on a stuffed sack over a ratty sweater stretched between sticks. No feet. I stood before it and the wind changed and the scarecrow spun unexpectedly. I caught what felt like a fist to the left side of my head, grunted, and dropped to one knee. Hand to my head, I opened my eyes to see the foot again. The knee above it met my chin and knocked me backward.

I panted, scrabbling backward on hands and feet, nowhere near as coordinated at retreating in such a manner as I had been when I was still in elementary school. The thing followed, the right side drawing back a black limb against the star-salted sky, something in its hand like a pitchfork, tines wicked and long. With a gasp I rolled to my right and kept going until I thought I was clear. The figure followed. My skin twitched like that of a horse thwarting flies. I looked hopefully toward the barn that seemed to be glowing with a golden light. As I stood there I was raked across the back with something that really could have been a rake, arched my spine and staggered forward, away from it. Now it was a man bent on hurting me or killing me. Killing me. Definitely killing me. As I seized his wrists and discovered his superior strength, I realized for the first time that he felt like a stranger to me.

His wrists felt like they were wrapped in coils of spaghetti. Loose, mushy bits fell away as we struggled and he twisted in my grip. I heard a sound like gas escaping from a tank and realized his hands were in fact the heads of two enormous snakes. The mouths opened and whenever they were able they raked my arms with needle-like fangs.

I was sweating so badly my hands simply slid over his strange, pulpy flesh. The barn behind me was on fire and I could hear screams coming from within it even though I knew there'd been no animals inside. The animal screams started to sound like infants crying and I knew somehow it was my own children who were dying, and I broke into tears and started yelling at my assailant, "I have to go to them! I have to be there!"

"You'll be there soon enough," a deep, gravelly voice promised, and my nostrils flared with the sudden stench of burning hair.

With a burst of adrenaline-fueled strength I thrust him away and turned toward the conflagration. "NO!" I hollered, trying to run toward heat that defied me with its intensity. I tripped and slid backward across the tussocked ground, something inhumanly strong gripping my ankles. My hands tore at the earth, catching on patches of grass. I thrashed and screamed while I was dragged toward the cool edge of the black forest. The moment I was released, I lunged on all fours toward the burning ruins, and the thing landed on my back. I tried to buck free of it and a hand eased across my left cheek like the caress of a lover.

 _Lover._

I was sleeping. This was a nightmare. It must have been Amanda touching me to comfort me. I screamed for her. The thing on my back laughed and repeated me. I screamed again and swore I could hear myself moaning in my bed. The man began to pound on my spine with his fists. I curled and uncurled, wriggling until I could face him and the blows increased as I screamed my throat wet and thought I could taste my own blood.

Something like cool shafts of light pricked my brain and I all I could see were beams of white-blue streaking across a field of black. My heart was in overdrive, my breathing had turned to coughing. I rolled onto my side and pulled at her like she was my blanket. "'manda," I gasped softly, barely able to draw the breath I needed to form speech. "Oh, 'manda. Nightmare. Thank you. Thank you."

She withdrew her fingers from my forehead and ran them down over my sweat-damp hair, partially atop me, her presence calming me quickly, her touch easing me back into untroubled sleep. The last thing I knew as the sweat dried and chilled me was my partner slithering over me like an anaconda to curl up in my arms while I breathed the mountain-breeze scent of her hair.


	12. Chapter 12

12

We had agreed to meet at work to create a report explaining how Corporal Schenker's death had not been alien-related, but I discovered when my alarm went off that I was so stiff and sore I wasn't sure I could even drag myself to the bathroom.

I flailed until I touched the Quasar, then sought out her hand and set it on my left side. "Pain," I moaned, and forced myself to relax until I felt refreshed and energized. "You are my favorite health plan", I sighed, rolling over to look at her. She was on her back staring dully at the ceiling. Her eyes flicked my way when I kissed her cheek. I started moving and quickly realized that the sheets were stuck to my back. _Sweat_ , I reasoned, and peeled myself free slowly.

"You okay?" the kid asked me. She'd rolled onto her side and her hair flowed seductively over and around her.

"Yeah, thanks," I told her, smiling as I rose and stretched. I looked back down and noticed marks on the sheet. Dark marks like lines and dashes. Taking hold of the sheet, I smoothed it and saw they formed rather distinct lines. I reached back to feel my skin and found something crumbly that fell away from my questing fingers.

The bathroom light came on at my touch on the switch and I was already in the process of turning for the mirror when I jolted badly, suddenly thinking I was in yet another nightmare. The face that stared back at me in shock was mine…but bruised across the left jaw, my chin. My lip had split and the wound was marked with a dark red crust. I found crusted blood in my left outer ear and more bruises and scratches all over my body. I stood astonished. The only brawl I could recall having been in was the one from my nightmare. Had I thrashed that much in my sleep? Had I maybe struggled with Amanda?

I stepped back into my bedroom. "Could you come here a minute?"

The kid rose elegantly, every hair falling into place, looking as perfect as a model waiting for her photo shoot. I took hold of her arm when she was close enough and drew her into the bathroom with me. Her eyes displayed dismay as she let them travel my colorful contours. She let her fingers smooth the skin over one discolored area and the hues faded. She lightly caressed another with the same effect. I'd fallen asleep with sweatpants on, but her fingertips flowed over every part of my body she could see, with the unfortunate side effect of stimulating me significantly.

Because she's a Quasar, I actually fear consummating what I long for, fearing it'll turn into some kind of surreal sex-fest where I have absolutely no control. She wasn't thinking of me sexually at the moment, which helped, but her touch was so light, so soft, so tender as her thumb grazed one of my nipples and I raised my arms so she could see beneath them. I knew my lower body needed to be checked, but I wasn't ready to feel her questing fingers gliding all over me. Yes I was. No. Not yet. My breathing became slower and heavier and I licked my lips, tasting blood. I looked in the mirror as I stood bent with my hands on the edge of the counter surrounding the sink. A thin line of bright blood was flowing steadily from my injury. I started to reach for it when my hand struck something and I looked down to see her rising to meet me. How she'd managed to get between me and the sink, I didn't know, but her hands caught the back of my skull and I inhaled in surprise as she tasted me, her lips soft as flour, wet and warm surrounding the little cut or whatever it was before her tongue lay gently against it and she drew it in and swallowed. A thrill coursed through me and I could feel my hot breath reflecting back in my face as my hands alighted upon her sides, massaging up and down, moving behind her so I could crush her to me.

Her fingers sank into my hair and her mouth opened so she could get at the blood again, but I positioned my own mouth to catch hers, applied just a light suction as I drew back slowly and she moved with me.

The phone rang. I released her and panted, running a hand across the top of my sweaty head. God knew what acts like that could lead to! I'd had fantasies that had ended weirdly and never well for me. She placed her open mouth on my left trapezius and I could feel her nipples harden beneath the rumpled dress shirt of mine that hung about her like loose fabric around a Renaissance cherub.

The phone rang.

I was still breathing heavy, my skin shiny with fresh sweat as I stared at her.

I mean, why postpone the inevitable?

The phone rang and she had it on her open palm, offering it to me helpfully although she'd never left the bathroom to grab it.

I smiled bemusedly and answered it. It was McKenna's wife, Dory, and she sounded upset.


	13. Chapter 13

13

Amanda had been to the McKenna home in Connecticut before, so she was able to transport us there at the speed of thought as soon as I'd dressed and told her where we needed to be. We could hear Dorreen sounding worried as she fussed over Geoff from where we'd materialized in the living room. The Quasar trailed me down the hallway toward the bedrooms. I knocked lightly on the open master bedroom door and the voices ceased. I cleared my throat and said, "Dory? You okay?"

"Alex?" she sounded confused. As she emerged into our line of sight she realized how we must have arrived so quickly. She offered Amanda a slight smile, then told me, "He's a mess. He was having a nightmare last night and I shook him out of it, but this morning he's all cuts and bruises."

Just like I had been. I inhaled sharply. "Geoff?" I called. "You need medical attention?"

"Just about," he answered, sounding rough and tired. His veterinary background had equipped him well for primate first aid.

Dory added, "He can barely move! He's so stiff and sore! You'd think he overworked himself at the gym, and then lost a fight with a street gang immediately after. "She turned worriedly toward the light that was coming from the bathroom doorway I couldn't see. "I don't get it. He never left the bed. He has two black eyes, a chipped tooth, a busted lip, bad scratches-"

I called, "You want me to send Amanda in to heal you?"

There was a pause, then, "Oh, yes! Please!"

"You're not naked in there, are ya?"

"Pajama bottoms," he replied.

I placed an arm around the kid, then gave her a gentle push into the room. When I beckoned to Dorreen, she blinked and neared me. "You got any breakfast stuff goin' on?"

Folding her arms over her breasts, she cocked a hip and asked, "I look like a waitress to you?"

I smiled and shrugged. "I'll cook if ya want. You need to get ready for work or anything?"

"Oh, would you?" she gushed happily. She was aware I had spent part of my youth as a cook in a Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown. My Russian background qualifies me as Asian, right? You'd be surprised how many Latinos man the kitchens in Chinatown. "Thanks, Alex," she said, pushing me backward so she could shut the bedroom door.

I knocked lightly upon it. "Uh…you might not want to watch what she does to him."

"What?"

I grabbed her arm and pulled her into the hall. "Trust me."

Dory McKenna cocked her head, then said, "Let me just grab my clothes. I'll do my hair and make-up after they're done."

I waited for her to emerge with black denim jeans, thick wool socks, a lightweight sweater flecked with washed-out coral, sand, black, and turquoise, a bra, panties, and a pair of boots. Seeing my expression when I caught sight of her underwear, she told me, "I'll change in Macy's room."

I was heading down the hallway when I heard teen McKenna grousing, "What? What? Why?" Then a door closed and latched. She uttered a warbling sort of grunt, then stalked after me a few paces. "No way! Alex?"

"Mornin', Glory."

"Hi," she said, grabbing at her mussed-up hair as I turned to smile at her. "Oh, God.…" She looked down at her Halloween-print shorts and black T-shirt with a glow-in-the-dark design on the front. "Sorry."

I shrugged and turned away so I could access the kitchen. "You should see me when I get up." Then I regretted saying that because the kid had a bit of a crush on me and I was aware when she responded to my comment with longing. "Sorry to throw you out of your own room. Wanna help me cook?"

"You came here to make us breakfast?"

"No. I came here because your dad lost a fight with a nightmare last night."

"What?"

I saw I'd worded that badly. "Uh, he got beat up while he was asleep or something. Sleepwalking maybe. Your mom called me. I came right over."

"Is he all right?"

"He will be," I told her, turning on the overhead lights. "Whatcha got good here? Bacon?"

"Turkey sausage."

"That's a breakfast thing?" She nodded, so I said, "Eggs?"

"We have those."

"Then whatcha want? Pancakes? Waffles? French toast? Cereal?"

Macy hopped up onto the counter near the sink and sat watching me. "I bet you're a really great cereal chef."

"You've never tried my fried Cheerios."

She laughed, unaware I was serious. "So what's up with dad?"

"I'm not sure. I haven't seen him yet. Haven't talked to him." I was grateful the kid was here distracting me because I didn't like the idea of Amanda running her hands all over McKenna's body, caressing his injuries away. Since I'd brought her, I was going to use her abilities in any way possible to make things right, but after my own session with her, I really required a distraction. "You in school?"

"I got a job helping out with a local newspaper. I take photos. Sometimes they let me come up with captions for 'em."

"Peter Parker is a photojournalist."

"Who? Wait…did you just reference Spider-Man?"

"I think so." I tested the heft of a copper-bottomed fry pan. The McKennas had top-of-the line gourmet cookware. I was an actual former chef and my stuff at home wasn't so fancy.

"Well, I think I'd like to get into layout and design…maybe assist with advertising-"

"Macy, get off the counter," Dory said, striding into view looking mussed up. I'd tried to date her on several occasions in the distant past. We remained friends, though interacted considerably less since her marriage to Geoff. The sight of her still made me smile, but my nine years in space made me see everyone so much older and tired-looking. I felt a little guilty admiring what I now thought of as her tarnished beauty. My time in space had returned me looking at least ten years younger than my true age.

The woman walked right up to me and gave me a very warm and friendly hug. She still felt bad for me since the loss of my girlfriend and unborn kids. It was annoying to me to know I was handling it better than anyone I knew. I'd be glad when people stopped looking at me in sorrow. She surprised me with a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for coming on such short notice. Macy, go put some clothes on," she ordered, and the sulky teen hurried away.

She started heating the stove and found condiments and toppings and sides for the meal. I had gone from head chef to mere helper in an instant. "So, what is your partner doing to my husband that you don't want me to see?"

I winced. "I had a nightmare last night. Woke up beat up, bruised and bloody. She healed me…but she had to see all the injuries and touch me to do it."

"You both had similar experiences? What was your nightmare about?"

I watched her crack eggs into a bowl and season them. I would have seasoned them just before they left the pan, but to each their own. "I was in a barn, I think. Some big, empty barn, looked like it had never been used but it was set up with clean straw and stuff for animals-"

"Your nursery," she said.

"Uh…sure. That makes sense. Okay, and then I went outside and there was this really dark tree line across a grassy field and I could just barely make out this scarecrow. It was silhouetted against the trees, but everything was dark, so it was really hard to see."

"You saw someone…who wasn't really there. Maybe an imagined threat?"

I gave her that one, watched her slice sausage from a roll. "But then he was real and he started beating the shit outta me."

"Looked like a scarecrow?"

"Not then. Then he had feet and shoes…and his punches sure felt real."

"Did you see his face?"

"No. Never, but…I think I did hear his voice. Kind of deep and scratchy…."

"Like yours?"

"Uh…well, maybe." I roughened my own voice and spoke to her. "More like this. Really, like evil deep…like not a radio voice, but maybe like a pro wrestler would use on TV."

She chuckled. "That just sounded like you trying to sound sinister and maybe a little lecherous."

"Well, I am."

She smirked at me. "Make some coffee, will you?"

I looked for the coffee maker, opened the lid to gauge the insides. "So at first I thought he attacked me with a pitchfork, but now I'm not sure he didn't just have…some kind of a glove or weapon-like thing…like Wolverine."

"Wolverine?"

"The comic-book character?"

"Ooh," she said. "Hugh Jackman. I wouldn't mind a dream where I got attacked by him."

"Hokay," I said. "So anyway the barn caught on fire and I could hear babies screaming inside it, and yes, thank you, I see now that it did represent the nursery I was working on. I kept trying to crawl to the barn, but this scarecrow-guy had me and he just kept wailing on me and he wouldn't let me go."

"Does he represent death to you? A personification of death? Taking your hopes away? Beating you down?"

I shook my head. "Wow…that sounds good. I dunno. Maybe. And then Amanda woke me and I just fell back asleep again."

"Mmm-hmm. And you woke up all bruised and bloody?"

"Yeah…that reminds me. Gotta get her to clean my sheets."

"Who?"

"Amanda. I'll just show her the stains and they'll disappear."

"Poor baby had an awful night," she decided. You must have been struggling with the blankets or something, scratched yourself trying to work free."

I shrugged. "Sure."

"And you're all better now?"

"Well," I began , suggesting a kiss would make it all better when we heard a door creak open and someone with more bulk than Macy shuffling along the hall. It would have been a joke, of course. I wouldn't suggest that Dory cheat on her husband. I wouldn't fool around with Geoff's wife. I had Amanda, after all...and someday…somehow…well….

"Thank you," Geoff said, looking haggard, but smiling. He wore a bathrobe over drawstring pajama bottoms. He drew a stool way from the breakfast counter and flopped onto it, running a hand through his lanky blond hair. "Hi."

I told him, "Hi."

"Better now, honey?" Dorreen asked.

"Oh, yeah." He caught my look and smiled at me. "I thought I might have to go to the emergency room."

"Oh, Geoff!" his wife exclaimed, abandoning sizzling sausage to place her hands on his face and look into his eyes. "You told me you'd be okay."

"I am," he said.

She scowled and shook her head. "Alex had the same thing happen," she said, opening a bag of bread so she could make toast. "Tell him what you dreamed."

I looked at her and he looked at me. "Me?"

"Geoff?" she prompted.

He said, "Oh, me. Okay. " He leaned back and scratched behind his head. "Well, it was really most of the night. I kept having these dreams where this guy was following me, but I could never really get a good look at him. No matter where I went, what I did, he was there. I kept waking up and every time I started a new dream, he'd show up. So I finally confronted him because I've been training myself to confront the things that haunt me in my nightmares, but this is the first time it ever backfired on me."

Doreen added, "He was tossing and turning all night. I think I only managed to fall asleep myself because I was so exhausted."

I nodded, enjoying the aromas she was producing.

Geoff said, "I grabbed him and pulled him to me and I was screaming, 'Who are you? Who are you?'"

"He was talking in his sleep," his wife said. "Moaning and crying out."

"And he said, 'I'm your _worst_ nightmare.' He said it like that like he knew we were in a dream. And that's really weird," he told me. "Because sometimes I argue with the people in my dreams. I'm always telling them I'm dreaming and they're just figures of my imagination and they always get angry with me or just refuse to believe me until I do something I can only do in my dreams. But this guy…it was like he _knew._ And that freaked me out and I felt my control slip away—the way you feel when you realize it's no longer a dream but a nightmare. And that's when he started punching and kicking and hitting me and slicing me up with this fistful of knives. He was just a little guy, but man was he strong! And he laughed the whole time he was doing it…" he trailed off, shaking his head as Dorreen set coffee before him and ran her fingers through his hair before she kissed his head.

If I wasn't telepathic, then I wouldn't have recognized the guy. I felt a little pale, a little sick, and very strange. I'd heard of people sharing dreams before, alleged encounters where the dreamers woke up and claimed to've interacted with each other while they were asleep sharing the same dream. I'd never experienced anything like that myself, but this was too close not to pay attention to. I said, "I think that's the same guy."

McKenna coughed, then drank some coffee. "You think what?"

"The guy I dreamed about, who beat me up last night…it was the same guy. I think."

His eyes traveled from Dory to me. "What…you saw him? Just now? As I was remembering it all?"

I nodded. "I had a dream last night, too. I had to fight this guy…smaller than me, but very strong. Like weirdly strong."

Dory turned to ask, "Like… _Quasar_ strong?"


	14. Chapter 14

14

Okay, we were all thinkin' it. We thought about it briefly. Who wouldn't? A little guy, really strong, crushed fedora, gravelly voice, laughs at his own twisted jokes, takes over your dream, sharp blades in one hand, whatever he does to you in your dream happens in real life.

But we still wouldn't say it. None of us would because that guy was fictional. A movie character. An actor played him. He wasn't real.

Geoff finished his breakfast, left to get dressed. Dorreen cleaned up, and then left to do her hair and makeup. Their daughter, Macy, eventually emerged from her room in faded blue jeans, high suede boots with what I guessed was fake fur protruding out of the tops of them, a zippered hooded sweatshirt featuring a raven and a dead tree on the front, angel wings on the back. "Is everything all right?" she asked me as she checked for leftovers.

I nodded. "So far."

"Dad's okay?"

"He's fine."

"You're not telling me something," she accused as Amanda came strolling out from her room in black suede boots, a flowing top of purple, black, green, magenta and white with sleeves that looked like something out of a Renaissance festival, her hair braided. I'd never seen her hair braided.

"You did that?"

"Did what?"

"Braided her hair?"

Macy shrugged. "I love her hair…it's always perfect. It blows in the wind like ribbons, then always lays perfectly back in place again. You can tie knots in it and it'll hold a ship's anchor."

I liked it. "Okay."

"You changed the subject."

"Did I?"

"You came over here at a moment's notice. No car outside. You left Amanda alone with Dad. That means she was helping him somehow. He got hurt?"

Clever, like her father, that one. "He went sleepwalking. Dory called me. Yeah, he got a little banged up."

"She wouldn't have called you for a little bang-up."

I said nothing as she dumped leftover Chinese from a box into a microwave-safe bowl with sausage patties on top of it. Amanda wanted to sit on my lap, but I held her at arm's length until she settled enough to examine my exposed skin again like she might've missed a bruise or two.

Macy set the hot food to the side and poached an egg in the microwave. She slid it onto the Chinese with sausage and strolled back toward her father's office, offering me a catty grin instead of saying goodbye.

Geoff returned looking considerably better in sand-colored jeans, hiking boots, and layered Henley shirts in oatmeal and avocado. "Shall we go?"

I shook my head slowly and lowered my voice to a near-whisper. "We can't tell anyone at work about this."

"Why not?"

"Because it's ridiculous."

"Did I miss something?"

I stood and seized his wrist. "Amanda, home!" I commanded and released him so I could flop down in a chair.

He was a little disoriented from making the journey from Connecticut to New York faster than he could blink, but exhaled, worked on lowering his heart rate, and finally sat on my couch. "What are you talking about?"

"We all thought it," I hated to admit. "Freddy Krueger."

He barked out a laugh of surprise. "What?"

"Bear with me here…you know any other phenomena where the people in your dreams can beat you up in real life?"

"Aside from Quasars?" he countered. "Huh. Let me think. Oh, sure! There have been alleged hauntings and demon possessions where people were bruised and scratched by unexplainable means, sometimes right on camera, sometimes live in front of investigators!"

He was exaggerating to let me know how foolish I sounded. "They weren't unexplainable," I said, gleaning that fact from his mind.

"Psychosomatic, Alex. All in people's heads. Mind over matter. You can hypnotize some subject and get the exact same results."

"Okay, so you think there's a new Double A they haven't told us about yet?"

"Maybe," he said, relaxing against the backrest. "I know they're still experimenting with subjects."

I said, "What about some other group? A different branch of ArtReal? Some copycat company playing with science?"

"Then how did the entity know to target us?"

I asked him, "Now it's a separate entity? It really is a dream-thing that came to both of us last night and busted us up real good?"

He said, "No, I think it's a movie character designed to scare teenagers out of the contents of their wallets at the DigiPlex."

I raised a palm and shook my head. "Do you know for a fact that it's not?"

"I know for a fact that hypothesis is absurd."

"So's what happened to us."

He asked, "Then why did he target us, Alex?"

"Because we're investigating the murders. We're the only ones who even suspect it could be him and we have the means to stop him."

"He isn't real."

I pointed at the Quasar who was sitting on the stairs, watching us. "She's barely real! Quasi-real! Didn't you tell me that if enough people believe in something that isn't real, then it might start to manifest?"

Geoff sighed and lowered his face into his hands for a moment. "There was an experiment years ago up in Canada. A group of people met for the express purpose of inventing a ghost they wanted to interact with. It took a long time, but they finally started getting results in the form of table tipping and knocking sounds. They asked this alleged entity questions about the life they had concocted for it, and it answered them as if it had all been true."

"How do you know it wasn't?"

He replied, "The nature of parapsychology is tenuous at best. I think someone once described it as looking for a black cat in a dark room while you're blind."

I said, "Run a can opener."

"Parapsychology doesn't have the equivalent of a can opener yet. Sure, maybe they psychically picked up on something similar that had happened to someone long ago and made contact with a spirit, maybe a demon decided to humor them in an attempt to beleaguer them down the road, maybe they tapped into their own telekinetic potential…no one knows."

I told him, "You don't believe in demons or possession."

"It's difficult to believe that the minions of hell are easily subdued with the right medication and some quality counseling." He smiled a little to himself. "Now, Quasar possession…that's real."

Amanda had possessed me before, using her ability to pass through solids to ensconce herself within me and then take over my body. It was usually pathetically comical. I tried, "So they're at the lab now messing with a body, testing it, and this one's abilities include dream influence, maybe some mild form of possession, and it can harm us in real life while we dream…the same as Freddy Krueger."

He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Don't go there. This isn't about that."

"Why not?"

"Okay—why target us? It doesn't know us, hasn't met us."

I said, "It's a psychic thing. He knows we're investigating the murders-"

"Wait. Where's your phone?"

I knew he wanted to call the police and see if any or all of the victims had been asleep, or at least in bed, on a couch or something where they might've drifted off to sleep when they died. "Horror movies, fantasy," I chimed in as I stood to find one of my phones.

"It's not Freddy Krueger!" he growled.

I pointed at Amanda. "If she had been a fan of those movies and got Quasared, she could easily bring the characters to life."

"You think they're experimenting at ArtReal with some kid who's a horror movie fan?" For the first time he started to really think about the possibilities.

I reminded him, "They achieved Amanda because she had a nightmare during the process. What if, to induce nightmares, they're over there exposing dreamers to imagery and sounds from the _Nightmare on Elm Street_ films?"

"Then I should call ArtReal…."

I retracted the hand that held a phone in it. "You can't let them know."

"Why?" he said.

I told him, "Because the more people who are thinking about Freddy, the more people are likely to dream about him… Isn't that part of how those movies go?"

"But, if there's a Quasar creating a living, murdering nightmare that's running around the place, we have to do everything in our power to stop it."

I said, "Okay. Tell ya what. This thing's after us, right?"

"Why didn't it kill us like the rest?"

"I don't know. Maybe because we weren't thinking of him. Not specifically. So, say that's how this works and we know now…next time either of us falls asleep, it's lights out. Really."

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "This is crazy. Let me call the police at least."

"Go for it," I told him, and made my way to the kitchen for a cold drink.

The TV came on without anybody touching it or pointing a remote at it, and Amanda was thoughtful enough to leave the sound on mute.


	15. Chapter 15

15

When things started taking longer than expected for Geoff, I had Amanda do her little instantaneous transportation thing so we could go poke around ArtReal. I only ran into a few people, but did an overall good job of avoiding those who might actually wonder what I was up to. We undoubtedly showed up on some security camera, but since they'd given her to me, our behavior had been pretty erratic anyway, so unless someone was trying to hide something from us, odds were that no one cared what we might be up to. As I recalled, I was supposed to be there anyway filling out a report on what I'd learned about Louie Schenker, the Netcop.

When I returned to the house, I startled Geoff by suddenly appearing in his peripheral view while he was making a sandwich in the kitchen. He dropped the silicon spatula he was spreading mayo with and it bounced on the countertop, splattering him a little.

"Nothing," I told him. "Nothing there anyway. And I think you're right—there's no sense in nosing around any of the other branches because this phenomena seems focused here."

He wiped mayo away with a piece of paper towel. "I got something."

"Did you?"

He layered smoked turkey, Canadian bacon, lettuce, dill pickle slices, and Lorraine cheese on pumpernickel, then paused to appreciate his handiwork. "It does seem like all of the victims were asleep, or at least resting—lying down or sitting—when they died. All the ones the police think are possibly connected anyway. But…I need to know…what were you doing Halloween night?"

I needed an alibi? I smiled. "Handing out candy."

"For how long?"

"It goes on and on, doesn't it? The little kids with their parents before the sun sets, the older kids in groups sometimes with an older kid or an adult later, then the few straggling teens even later."

"You give candy to teens late at night?"

"I keep the lights on. I answer the door. I still have candy. Keeps them from toilet papering the house or soaping my car."

"Okay," he said, lifting the plate with the very attractive sandwich on it and carrying it toward me in the living room. "So how late was that?"

"I dunno. It stopped before ten…maybe nine-thirty were the last kids?"

"You remember ten because you told yourself that if no one showed up by then, you were shutting everything down."

"Yup."

He set the plate on the coffee table and I wanted it. "And then what did you do?"

"I turned out the lights in the front of the house. Sat on the couch, ate some candy. Watched a little TV."

He raised a finger, "And what, pray tell, did you happen to see on TV?"

I cocked an eyebrow. "Well, Mr. Holmes, I think I was watching _Young Frankenstein_. Yeah. I remember Gene Wilder and…that other guy…with the hunch."

"Marty Feldman."

"Yeah, but I think I fell asleep pretty quickly. I woke up around three. Imagined myself getting to bed, turned so I could lay on the couch instead of sitting there slouched, woke up again around seven."

His features fell. "Oh."

I smiled politely as he sank onto the couch and sighed before grabbing hold of that beautiful sandwich. "Why? You thought you had something there. You thought I watched God-damned Freddy Krueger, didn't you?"

He took a large bite and chewed, nodding. He swallowed and said, "I went through your recycling bin. Found the paper from that night. Read the TV listings. There was a channel that hosted a _Nightmare on Elm Street_ marathon. Went on all night and into the next day."

I watched him chew and thought it would be nice to grab him a drink because I thought he might start coughing in a minute. Hurrying from the room I found a glass and poked amidst the wall-to-wall leftovers from the Dusek party that were crammed in my 'fridge until I turned up a can of ginger ale. I wiped the top down, then popped it and carried it back to set beside his plate. He looked up with a smile until he saw the hopeful, yet pained expression on my face.

"Finish swallowing," I told him.

He paused, resumed chewing, stated to cough a little. Grabbed the drink. I left to grab him a paper towel.

"Why, Alex?" he said loudly, having risen to his feet.

"Ah," I said, ripping a paper towel free and folding it once before I returned to the living room. "What channel was that on?"

"The marathon?"

"Yeah." I held the makeshift napkin toward him, but he didn't take it.

He turned to see Amanda sitting in a chair near the TV, nonchalantly watching us. "She wasn't down here with you?"

"I didn't want her to scare the trick-or-treaters."

"She was upstairs, wasn't she? In your bedroom. Watching the other TV."

I nodded.

He snatched the paper towel away from me. "She was watching it, wasn't she?"

"I put on one of those channels where the guy dresses like an idiot with coffins and rubber bats and tries to tell funny jokes before and after the commercial breaks."

He sank onto the couch, his eyes rolling back before he closed them. I watched him nod.

I looked at Amanda. She was watching him keenly. She was interested in the sandwich, too. Swallowing, I said, "So she's the cause of this."

McKenna cleared his throat, shrugged, and said, "Well…probably."

I closed my own eyes and sank into the chair opposite her. "Okay. Say it's her. Usually, once she's distracted, whatever person or thing she's magicked up just disappears."

"But she must have been watching the same thing over and over for hours. You practically programmed it into her! Have you ever binge watched anything with her before?"

"Binge watched?"

"Like an entire season of some show you like or a movie marathon? All the _Lord of the Rings_ movies back to back?"

"No," I told him.

"All right. All right. We're still guessing here. We don't know this for a fact. We're just guessing."

I repeated, "Guessin'," and nodded.

"Say she sees something fascinating about the character…gee, like he's almost a Quasar himself? He's a guy who haunts the dream-realm and interacts with people while they're dreaming-"

"Freddy!" the kid suddenly gushed, smiling.

I looked at her strangely. "You remember watching Freddy? The dream-guy? On TV?" She has a very short attention span and confuses memories with dreams. She confuses reality with dreams for that matter.

She reached up and drew a hat down over her head. I nearly lost it until I saw it was my own brown, pinch-front fedora with the white ribbon band. Grinning, she opened a hand wide and slashed it before herself, making ridiculous growling noises.

"That convinced me," McKenna said, taking another large bite of his sandwich, but looking extremely worried.

"Funny Freddy," she said softly, biting her lower lip.

"Excuse me?" I said.

"He's funny."

I looked at her in shock. Clearly he was a horror character, a serial killer of sorts.

Geoff spoke with his mouth full. "He does shay hunny shings."

I lowered my face into my left palm and rubbed it, wishing I could erase myself from existence. "Oh, God. You _like_ him. You think he's funny."

She smiled and nodded vigorously.

"But…Amanda…Freddy _kills_ people."

"Just in movies."

Geoff's attention went from her to me. "She mixes up fantasy and reality."

"That's how she exists at all," I reminded him. "That's how she's able to do everything she does in…the waking realm."

"I know what Quasars are," he groaned. "So…her confusion…made him real?"

I shrugged helplessly, shaking my head.

"And she knows him so well thanks to hours of unsupervised TV watching, that once he became real, he began to function just like the real deal."

I puffed out my cheeks and blew through my lips.

Geoff looked straight ahead at nothing as his mind raced. "Of course, he can only interact with people in their dreams…and everyone he killed must have seen the marathon, too, or just happened to have a dream about him for some reason."

I tried, "And because we didn't know who he was, we couldn't identify him in our dreams."

"We weren't afraid. He feeds off fear. You're psychic, so maybe you picked up on his presence when-"

I blurted, "That Dusek kid! Jakob! He felt all weird and burnt up inside when I made mental contact with him. It wasn't him…it was Freddy!"

Geoff scowled. "I still feel stupid pursuing this."

"Say we're wrong," I told him, "and I hope to God we are. But, what if this has nothing to do with Freddy Krueger, nothing to do with Amanda…it's just…coincidence."

"For lack of a better word right now," he conceded, nodding.

"Then it doesn't hurt to explore the possibility so we can at least rule it out."

"That's good science," he said, feeling a little better about it. Then he remembered waking battered and bruised. Was that some sort of weird coincidence? I'd had a similar experience. Coincidence? He didn't like the notion, but it was, of course, possible. "Just not probable," he concluded softly, making a face as if to ask himself if that sounded sane.

I told him, "Rachael left sleeping pills. I didn't throw them out because I thought…who knows? Maybe I could use them some day."

" _Night."_

I smiled at him. At least he hadn't lost his sense of humor.

He said as I stood, "This will be first time that I know of where someone intentionally went to sleep so they could confront him."

"Wasn't there a movie where they did that, though? Group of kids? Thought they could defeat him if they joined together with their own abilities in the dream world?"

"Oh. Yeah. Third movie. I think I almost liked that one."

I nodded grimly. "Okay. If he's the cause of the weird deaths and he's already tried to target me, then when I fall asleep, he should come after me again."

"If he stays true to form."

"Don't see why he wouldn't." I grinned expansively. "I think this is actually gonna be kinda cool."

"And…you will have Amanda with you?"

"Of course," I grumbled. "I ain't stupid."

"I think all the kids in the third movie died. Except that one girl…Nancy? Was that her name? was she even in that film?"

"Dunno. Haven't seen any of them in a long time."

"Me, either." He made a face. "Then why did he come after me?"

"Musta picked up on you from me somehow. Sorry."

He inhaled and lifted the remains of his sandwich. "It should take you a few minutes to get sleepy."

I told him, "I'll be waiting upstairs. C'mon, kid. Need your help."

She launched herself from the chair with cat-like grace and agility, landing on the staircase just as I was nearing it. I felt confident about my chances. With her by my side, I was damn well invincible.

Despite what Geoff thought.


	16. Chapter 16

16

I changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt, and then made the bed up enough that it didn't look like I had neglected it that morning. I lay down on my side of the bed, the left, and adopted the yoga position known as the Corpse Pose.

As a guy who works for a dream research facility, I know some tricks on things like dream seeding. As you're falling asleep, concentrate on some fantasy you really enjoy and there's a good chance you'll get to play the rest of it out once you've hit the rapid eye movement stage. I was already imagining a confrontation with Freddy when I heard Geoff enter the room. He watched me for a moment as I continued slowing my respiration rate and willing myself to relax a few body parts at a time.

"I had an idea," he mentioned softly. "What if we just make her binge-watch something else? Something benign. To distract her from this _Elm Street_ stuff."

"Take too long," I replied softly, my voice having lost some of its gravel as I continued drifting serenely toward somnambulation.

I heard his exhaled reply. "If this is real, and I'm still thinking it's a bit of a stretch, he may well kill you."

It took a moment for me to garner up enough energy to ask, "Got 'manda with you?"

"I can get her."

" _Matrioshka_ ," I told him, and yawned expansively. My eyes fluttered open and I saw him scowling down at me. "What?"

He shrugged and shook his head. "Your call." He left and I tried to remember where I'd left off, telling my body parts to go to sleep.

Matrioshka is what they call those little Russian nesting dolls that fit one inside the other. Most are painted with the features of pretty maidens, but some show a woman at various ages, or could be comical with story characters, various world leaders, or what have you. Of Russian descent, I didn't grow up speaking the language, but I know a smattering of it still, and after Amanda displayed her ability to occupy the same space as myself at the exact same time as myself—which has come in very handy more times than I recall—I chose the word as the command to have her perform the trick whenever I desired. It's a disturbing ability, I know. It still freaks me out some and I try not to think about it too much while it's happening. But it also boosts my psychic ability considerably and allows the Quasar to accompany me in the unconscious realms.

You didn't think I was gonna try and take on Freddy Krueger alone, did you?

The sleeping pills and my relaxation techniques must have been kicking in. I heard Geoff's footsteps on the stairs, but the next thing I recognized was a sinking sensation as though the earth had opened up to swallow me down a long, dark tunnel filled with whiskery roots. Like _Alice in Wonderland_ , I probably would have felt alarmed had I not felt Amanda's specific presence pervade me. She was the earth, the hole that swallowed me, the roots that caressed me, and the thickening sludge that eventually engulfed me.

I sat in a dark, empty movie theater alone. Heavy velvet drapes framed the screen. The seats were ornate in silhouette, cushioned in aging, dry rotting velvet. I could smell the ghost of popcorn from another era. I was comfortable. I was ready.

The screen flickered to life when a white beam from behind me struck it. Quick images flitted by, and I relaxed further still, letting my mind wander until it thought it saw patterns. I felt like I was going to drowse off when the doorbell rang and I sat upright with a shallow gasp. The TV was on. Some old black and white creature feature. I was in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up worn open over an old grey T-shirt. There was a large bowl half full of candy on the coffee table. The doorbell rang again and an uncertain hand knocked upon the door while giggles were poorly smothered in the background.

"Halloween," I grunted, rising to my feet. I wiped at the corner of one eye that felt kinda wet, wiped my finger on the tail of my flannel shirt. "Coming!" I called, hearing the knocks of several small fists simultaneously. I looked around the room. Something seemed off.

"Trigger treat," chimed several voices from outside.

"Trick or treat," I responded with a yawn. I grasped the knob and it grasped me back, molten fingers clutching me like a statue wanted to dance. My heart started pounding and I inhaled sharply. The door oozed into the shape of a very badly burned man in a sweater and misshapen fedora. He grinned. Behind him lay the bodies of half a dozen children in torn and bloodied costumes, one dead adult amongst them.

" _Trick,"_ he decided, sneering at me as I backed away, pulling him farther inside.

I was astounded. "Oh, _wow_! Freddy Krueger in the flesh! It really is you!"

He doffed his hat like an old stage player and told me, "In _your_ flesh, Alexander!"

He displayed the famous gloved hand that could slice and dice people like he was preparing a ghoulish chef's salad later. I jolted, remembering this might actually hurt, and fell backward over the coffee table, which freed me from his grip.

"Ow," I said, banging my head on some hard part of the couch.

"Want me kiss it, make it better?" Man, he was ugly! The guy in the movies wasn't too hard to look at despite his soft, rubbery half-peeled face, but this was Krueger as designed by Amanda's messed up mind, and it brought a whole new level of realism and horror to the scenario.

Bits of his skin clung to the rest of him by tiny fibers like autumn leaves soon to drop from skeletal trees. Parts of him were so badly charred that a black powder marked the flesh or fabric just beneath. He smelled like badly burnt pork barbecue and festering wounds. The sweater he wore had bits of him soaked into it, and in some places it appeared that his skin had tried to heal over it. His eyes were bright and feral, but the whites looked a lot like hard-boiled eggs—more ivory than liquid-filled, with a slight greyish tint. They looked a little too large for his head, but that was the effect of his dried flesh retreating from the scorched edges of the deeply hollowed sockets. Most of his nose was missing, and there was a strangeness to his voice like every time he spoke someone lit an old-fashioned wooden match slowly, and the flaring spark and consumption of air shadowed his every syllable before dying out in a strange, dry hiss.

I tried to tell myself this was what I wanted. I shouldn't be afraid. The guy fed on fear, didn't he? Then it only stood to reason he'd be an expert at inciting it.

He toyed with my bare feet like he had some kind of weird fetish. My legs were raised, knees bent over the edge of the overturned coffee table. The bowl and its contents rested near my right side. "How 'bout a Zagnut?" I joked weakly, holding up the first thing I grabbed.

"Nobody eats those anymore," he said, waving his gloved hand dismissively at me.

I turned my head to watch chunks of candy and fingers fly across the room. I was afraid to turn my head back again.

"Not so brave as you thought, eh, Alex?"

I swallowed, feeling warm liquid run down my still upraised arm. Waitaminute. This wasn't right. Amanda was upstairs watching TV. I screamed her name as I scrambled free of the table and backward up onto the sofa, wincing and gasping when I tried to use my injured hand for support. I was crouched on the couch, splattering it with blood, standing above him, trying to figure if I should leap backward or to one of the sides when I heard a voice say, "Funny Man!"

Krueger's head shot up, bird-like, for a look at the newcomer. The bloodlust left his features and his body relaxed into a bit of a slouch.

"Amanda!" I said breathlessly, and waved what was left at the end of my arm around.

She waved back. "Alex!"

I looked at her incredulously, then saw I was whole and even stain-free suddenly. Laughing with relief, I turned back to the guy and sneered. "Glove's on the other hand now, huh, asshole?"

He continued to watch her, ignoring me. He'd lowered his head and stared from beneath the uneven brim of his hat. I could see that most of his ears were missing. His lips appeared to have crisped and shrunken like cheap breakfast links. The edges of his cracked and broken teeth were either old bloodstain brown or recently chewed charcoal briquette black.

The Quasar descended and looked at me. "Why are you on the sofa?"

I pointed at Krueger.

"Funny Man," she said again. I watched him maintain his distance.

She was reacting to him like a favorite uncle and he was more like a dog that was fight ready until someone threw a bucket of water on him.

"So, what's the agenda, Funny Man?" I asked, hopping down and stepping over the table toward him.

His greasy, dried lips curled in a fleer as his head turned my way, but his eyes stayed locked on her.

She smiled and beamed at him like she was pleased with what she had wrought.

He breathed in a slow, slightly labored manner like a little boy who's just been caught and accused of doing something he didn't do but can't defend himself because the adult accusing him is convinced otherwise.

" _Get him, Amanda_ ," I growled, cracking my knuckles with glee.

She came up beside me and wrapped her arms around me in a hug. "Get _him_ ," I prompted, trying to pry her off of me. "Go _get him_! He chopped my God damned fingers off over a fucking Zagnut!"

She pulled away from me. "Fingers?" She held my wrists and examined my hands.

"But you healed me! Just now! Remember?"

I turned and Freddy was gone. "No!" I shouted, heading for the doorless threshold. " _No!_ Krueger, get back here! Freddy! Fred- _deeeeee_!"

Amanda followed me, but dropped behind me when she saw the dead bodies. She displays an aversion to corpses. " _Ew_ ," she commented.


	17. Chapter 17

17

I regained consciousness with a strangled kind of snort and tried to push upright, but was too weak and woozy to do more than flop a little.

"Alex? What happened?"

I winced and groaned. "Nothing! Nothing happened! She thinks he's funny and he doesn't react to her. He just stands there sulking. Fu-uck!"

"Did he even try to attack you?"

I lifted an arm. "He cut my fuckin' fingers off! Did he cut my fuckin' fingers off?" I made a fist, opened it. I looked at Geoff.

"Are you asking me?"

I rolled my eyes. "He didn't cut my fingers off. Why didn't they come off?"

"Alex?"

I rolled toward him and growled, "Did you see my fingers go flying? Was there blood everywhere? On the bed and shit?"

He shook his head. "No! I saw you hit REM sleep pretty fast. You seemed calm at first, then murmured and jolted a little. You did turn your head at one point…"

"To watch my fingers go flying by!"

"Okay, but…maybe it was just a dream, Alex. Maybe, like we thought earlier, maybe a handful of people are just experiencing really freaky dreams and sleepwalking and getting hurt."

"Dory said you thrashed around in your sleep last night, but she was surprised at how badly you were injured when she finally got up."

"Psychosomatic," he countered.

"Can you psychosomatically kill yourself?"

"I…I don't think so."

"Geoff, he's real! He was so…damned real! I could _smell_ him! You wouldn't want to, but my God…everything was so much more detailed, so, so intense compared to those corny little films.…"

He said, "You had Amanda with you. She enhances your psychic perceptions, probably your dreams, too."

I mashed my fists against my forehead as I snarled, "No, Geoff! She made him real! He's really here and he's killing everyone who happens to dream about him! At some point someone's gonna figure it out or at least make jokes about how similar the deaths seem to the victims in those movies, and the next thing you know he starts spreading like God damned wildfire! We have to stop this! It has to happen now!"

He lifted his hands defensively. "All right! All right already! Let's get her to ArtReal and put her in stasis-"

I sat up and yelled, "Don't you see that he functions independently of her? She's turned him loose. She doesn't have to think about him to keep him around like she does other things she materializes because of his very nature! He only needs someone to remember him, to dream about him, and he suddenly exists on his own! No one else can die!"

"I don't want anyone else to die," he replied calmly.

"Do you not realize that once people start thinking he's somehow real, they'll wonder how he became that way? Someone is gonna question this! Fictional characters don't suddenly exist for no reason! ArtReal will say, 'Oh, well we've got this Quasar who could probably take him,' and how long before they figure out it was her who brought him to life all along?"

"Quasars aren't allowed to kill," he mentioned softly, lowering his gaze.

"They'd destroy her! Something with that kind of capability, whether intentional or not, is a threat to every single one of us!"

He knew I was right. He felt bad for trying to convince me otherwise. He was not convinced that Freddy Krueger had somehow come to life to kill people in reality, but he realized we had no other choice but to do everything in our power to try and stop him _if_ he somehow had. And the best way to stop him was through Amanda before someone thought it would be a good idea to destroy her. He said, "I hope we don't _have_ to destroy her to destroy him."

That was an ugly thought. I yawned. "Okay. I have another idea."

"Go for it."

I glanced up at him warningly. "You're not gonna like this. I wanna do it again. But this time, without her."

He brightened a little. "So then we'll know for sure if he's somehow responsible, or if we're just having dreams that short-circuit our bodies' natural tendency not to act our dreams while we're having them. But how will you make yourself dream about him without her help?"

I rolled onto my back again. "You don't get it. You may not be convinced that he's real, but I am. He doesn't like that I escaped him so easily. He'll be waiting for me. Doesn't matter what I dream about, he'll show up. This time, I'll let him get me."

"You want to wake up bruised and bloodied?"

I closed my eyes and said, "I don't plan on waking up at all."

It was quiet for a few moments as that sank in. "You…expect him to try and kill you. For real."

"I'm going to let him."

" _Why?"_

"Because Amanda needs to see how dangerous he is. He's not just some funny guy, he's a God damned living, breathing homicidal psychopath. I'm going right into his den. He won't be able to resist me. I'm going to let him kill me, and then you're going to send her in to finish him off."

Geoff's breathing was shallow. I had opened my eyes while I was explaining things, and now he looked very unhappy. "Alex…you're going to let him _almost_ kill you-"

"You're a doctor," I said. "Take my pulse. When it stops, send her in."

"I'm a retired veterinarian. You're insane."

I shot back, "You still don't believe me anyway."

"God, Alex…we can think of something else to try-"

I rolled onto my right side, said, "Amanda, _out!_ ", and when I rolled back, she was lying on her side where I had just been, her backside pressed up against me. I grabbed Geoff's arm. "It's not going to be easy. She's gonna wanna try and help me as soon as she realizes I'm in trouble, but she trusts you…so you gotta keep her from entering me until you're certain that I'm dead."

He swallowed and withdrew from my grip. "Well, technically, even though your vital signs may cease, it's estimated that the brain may retain function for up to-" he stopped when he saw me yawn again. "Pretty powerful sleeping pills?"

"I took six I think."

His eyes widened. "What's the dosage?"

"Half a tablet before bedtime."

" _Alex!"_ he nearly shouted in agitation.

"I got work to do," I told him, yawning again. "Oh…mmm. Just hold her back, okay?"

"And if he does something that makes you explode and we can't get you back?"

"Then it'll be your turn and you'll…need someone to monitor your pulse."

"Oh, Jesus!" he blurted, extremely alarmed.

I closed my eyes.

Amanda asked, "You okay?"

"Not particularly, no," he answered her.

"Alex?" I felt her nudge me.

"Leave him be," McKenna said gently. "I need you to pay very close attention to me, okay? I have a special job for you…"

He droned on and I caught syllables, but no more actual words as a muted kaleidoscope began in my brain, the strange colors and shapes shifting until they began to spin, and I might have smiled to myself as I gave in to that floating/falling sensation and sank so very deep within myself that I lost all sense of self at all.


	18. Chapter 18

18

" _Aleks!"_ The voice was soft and sing-song. It had an accent. " _Aleks! Aleksandr!_ _Time for waking up now!"_

My breathing hitched. I hadn't heard that voice in so long…soft, and breathy when she was speaking to me, louder and more melodic when she addressed someone outside the family. I remained perfectly still, feigning sleep. Was it a school day? Did I _have_ to get up? Had we made plans to go somewhere?

"My poor boy, he is sleepy headed," she said in that near-whisper with the hint of a giggle behind it. Her accent had been thick, but still perfectly understandable. My heart began to pound. My view was of the plain wall in its dingy old yellowed color, an adornless window to the right, the soft daylight of approaching winter glowing coldly through it. I heard her begin to leave, her soft tread magnified by the creak of old, loose-fitting pine floorboards. _"Mother!"_ I cried, sitting up, turning, and throwing the covers from me simultaneously.

" _Fucker!"_ the thing that wore a plain light blue dress and dingy, fraying apron over it snarled as it whipped its head around to lock me in.

I gulped hard, which started a coughing spell even as I scrambled backward off the bed into the corner and stupidly tried to become one with it.

Krueger tore the dress away like he'd been hired for a bachelorette party and lunged toward me in all his filthy, knitted glory.

I wasn't a boy. I was big enough to fight back, to defend myself. I seized the edge of the flimsy, thin mattress and flung it toward him as I smashed the window with my left elbow and flung myself backward through it. I landed hard and heard an engine start. An abandoned lawnmower encompassed by long grass reared as it whined to life, its blade coming at me to relieve me of bodily fluids. I shrieked and rolled up onto my feet, tried to run before I was upright and tripped, entangled in a rusted-out tricycle with a flat front tire. I kicked the toy at the mower, which growled when its blades jammed, and then Krueger leaped out the window, glass shards following him, and turned toward me. I rolled over, saw an old metal baseball bat and rose up swinging. Pieces of it flew into the road the way my fingers had.

I remembered then. This was supposed to happen. It would somehow be okay. Amanda had restored my hand the last time, she'd restore me again no matter what this asshole tried…but the anticipation of pain had me waver dangerously between the desire to run and a hopeless feeling that I should just get things over with.

I lunged at him with the shortened end, and he grunted as it met his body just beneath the breastbone. His look of mild discomfort became a wicked grin as he grabbed the handle and wrenched it free of my grip. I turned and ran like hell. The metal fragment landed near me and bounced. I wanted to turn and taunt him for the miss, but as I passed the object I saw it was instead an old WWII potato masher grenade.

"Can't blow up!" I gasped, and veered wildly to my left. One foot hit the sidewalk and the next struck air. An old sedan was barreling down the street, heading right for me and I pushed off its hood, leaping for the sky and achieving it even as the ordinance exploded.

" _This is a dream!"_ I growled, turning in mid-air with two .44s firing at the figure that had flung itself free of the slowly overturning car.

"Yup. You're in _my_ playground now, _Sandy_!" Krueger snarled back, sprouting diseased-looking bat wings from his back and flapping them so he could pursue me.

Speed was not something I was known for when I flew in my dreams. In fact, once I get that weird, draining sensation that tells me I'm in a nightmare, I lose all of my dream abilities and am forced to endure it unless I can will myself awake. I turned away from him and struggled for altitude, for speed, and the best I was able to achieve was an uncontrolled tumble as a breeze rose up and tossed me about like an autumn leaf.

The Krueger-demon flapped and bobbed, dived and weaved. I managed to kick at his hand and glove, but he finally grasped one ankle and used it to toss me like a Scotsman performing a weight throw for the Highland games. I hollered as I soared over a street and took out a mailbox. I landed hard on my belly, wind knocked out of me, nose full of blood that was seeping into my mouth from inside, my side aching from having collided with the thick wooden stake that had held the box in place.

Geoff McKenna's breath became erratic as he watched the damage being done to his friend. It was no longer a question to him of _if_ Freddy Krueger was real. He had entered the rapid eye movement stage calm, contented, but that had quickly become a series of inarticulate moans and some light, slow-motion thrashing. He wondered if he shouldn't have tied Alex down. Wondered if it was too late. Then the unconscious man had grunted and hollered a long, low note. He'd started panting, his movements becoming jerkier. _"No,"_ he'd mumbled, then more forcefully, _"No!"_ The man's respiration was fast and shallow. He could easily hyperventilate if he didn't calm down. He began to roll and toss, his partner watching him with something like incredulity on her face. Her eyes flicked back and forth between him to Geoff, but the taller, older man didn't seem overly concerned.

"Alex?" she asked softly, reaching for him.

"No," McKenna said firmly, reaching to push her hand away.

She looked at him with incomprehension.

He said simply, "Be patient, Just watch."

Then Alex's already broken nose made a horrible popping sound and blood gushed forth, escaping from his mouth as well. Geoff gasped and drew back, but had to lunge over his friend to prevent the Quasar from assisting him. He seized the man's wrist, but in his panic had trouble discerning his racing pulse from his own. Alex coughed, spattering his co-worker with blood. Geoff rolled his head to the side, and then struggled to flip him using his shoulders. Then he wondered if he was doing the right thing. Was Alex supposed to drown in his own blood?

The big Russian American moaned and tried to curl into a ball. Geoff figured out there was something wrong with his side and had the teen force him onto his other side so he could take a look. There was an enormous bruise forming from the base of his ribcage nearly down to his hip. The red imprint in the middle looked suspiciously rectangular. He palpated the injury and the patient writhed and groaned. Amanda's hand lowered over his and he lifted it away, flinging it so she'd get the point. She stared at him like he was crazy and his eyes widened a little. She could pass right through him if she wanted to touch her partner. Geoff was no obstacle to her, but she did trust him…so far. He wondered how much more any of them could take.

I made myself move. Every movement made me want to curl into a ball. My side hurt bad. I suspected cracked ribs. It hurt to inhale, but I made myself do so, deeply, exhaling in a kind of breathless shout. The sound of wind increased and a shadow overcame me. I saw the huge wings flap to slow his descent, and then his feet slapped the ground in a nasty, heavy manner, leaving sunken footprints as he began to stride toward me.

I had to concentrate to inhale enough, and could only do so haltingly as I crawled sideways, far too slowly, away from the oncoming horror. As he drew near, he lifted a leg behind him, and I dropped to my stomach so the kick only grazed my side instead of catching me and flinging me. He bent down before I could react, sinking his extended blades into the flesh of my upper back. I arched and screamed and he lifted me like a rabbit pulled out of a magician's top hat, then proceeded to punch me like he was training for a future bout with Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Each blow sank me farther back onto the blades until I could feel them piercing things I rather preferred unpierced, until they finally began to tent my flesh while blood poured out of my mouth and down my chin.

Geoff was torn. Did he try and save his friend, keep him alive as best he could, or let him die? The point was he thought he needed to die in order to convince Amanda that Krueger needed to be defeated permanently. But Geoff was loath to let him expire when he had the skills to keep him alive as long as possible. He heard himself emit a little shriek of horror when he saw Alex's flesh rise up in four points as though he was being slowly run through by swords that were pushing through his mattress. A red stain began to spread from beneath him. He coughed and choked on blood that was actually pouring from him in little waves timed with the beating of his heart.

Amanda emitted an inarticulate yell he would later describe as a Klingon's war cry, and he stared at her long enough to notice that her eyes looked considerably paler, if not downright colorless, her hair had lifted enough to stir about her like a good window fan had been turned on, and her normal pallor was beginning to look a more normal pink.

He kept trying to keep Alex's airway clear. He hoped he wasn't simply prolonging his torture.

I coughed so hard I vomited blood and Krueger shook me from his glove like he was flicking a booger. I landed with a grunt, felt dizzy, little squiggly silver things squirming in my vision. My breathing seemed really loud. I only knew I was moving because of the pain I encountered when my head lolled in a direction it shouldn't.

"Where's your little girlfriend now, Russkie?" I heard his voice, but it sounded odd like he was speaking into a deep bucket or through an aquarium full of water without the annoyance of breaking air bubbles. "Did you really think I was so easy to confront?"

I grabbed at anything my fingers could hold and slowly worked my legs, squirming slowly and not especially effectively like a sadly uncoordinated infant. _Away,_ was all I could think. _Get away._

"The proper phrase is, 'Wake up,' stupid," he mentioned, and I could sense he was quickly losing interest in me. "And here I thought maybe I could play with her. But your little dream girl won't be joining us this time, will she?"

So hard to concentrate. I glimpsed his dark shape now and then through eyes blurred with wetness. The ground felt so hard and I seemed to weigh a fuckin' ton. I rolled onto my stomach and coughed repeatedly, vomiting more blood and a white foam. The effort to expel the contents of my insides was horrendously painful, and I curled my head down into my own vomit and heard myself make a sound like a God damned mewl. Hatred flared through me, but dissipated like a struck match that went out almost instantly. _Amanda_ , I thought. Wasn't this enough? Had I suffered enough that she'd see how evil he was and kill him for me? _Oh, God, please, let him release her to me. I need her, please, God, please_. I took a few staccato breaths and lifted my head a little. Shadow alerted me to movement. I cringed, aware he was going to get that kick in.

Tears streamed from Alexander's eyes as Geoff fought back his own, teeth gritted as he tried to wipe vomit away with a balled up blanket. Amanda was seething, her face near his, daring him to look her in the eye and defy her, ready to obliterate her trust in him. He had felt quivers run through the floors, heard the walls of the house groan, felt strange swirling cool breezes. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that entire segments of the room seemed to be missing, the edges shimmering as she threatened to not only enter Alex's dream world, but to possibly pull Geoff in as well. He was afraid to acknowledge her. Afraid she'd see something she'd take as a sign of consent, then possibly react too soon. She kept so close he could feel her breath as she breathed quickly through clenched teeth, producing a rhythmic wet sound he found uncomfortably like that of an enraged bull mastiff he'd once had the misfortune to treat as a student. A cold sweat burst out upon him and he saw himself trembling with adrenaline.

Alex suddenly stopped his weak writhing and appeared to try and clench his entire body. Geoff had the very bad feeling the dam was going to burst. One of the man's hands rose shakily as if to protect his head, and then his neck made a sound like a thick tree limb snapping in a storm. McKenna jumped, his mind taking in the scene of his best friend's head cocked way too far to the side, his hand looking like a torn glove full of glass shards with small bones poking through it. He felt himself moving in slow motion to grab the wrist so he could check for a pulse, and then his vision filled momentarily with the flash of eyes so white-hot they seemed to glow from within metallic, grey-blue circles. He blurted a sound of horror and recoiled behind his upraised arms, only glimpsing the figure that appeared to leap over the side of the bed like it was a cliff and literally dive into the broken body on the bed.

The next thing I was aware of was the sweet scent of clean air, a faint breeze caressing my warm forehead. The sun was bright, but muted by the cold overcast of a wintery sky. I felt peaceful, I felt ten feet tall and heroic. It took me a few moments before I breathed again, and then exhaustion and a dull pain made me really want to sit down immediately. I allowed my legs to weaken, and rolled downward, collapsing my body as best as I was able so I hit the ground as gently as possible. My head cocked to the side, I saw I was looking up at a statue. Had I been standing that close to a statue? It looked like the stature of a girl, caretakingly carved like something you might find in a nice, old cemetery. Except her hair moved. And I watched her for a while, pale in pale, flowing clothing, against a pale sky. Then I let my gaze drop slowly until it appeared that our feet occupied the exact same space. She took a step away from me and my pain flowed and rippled after her like the wake of a sailboat.

 _Amanda?_ I hadn't said it aloud, and she didn't speak either, but I sensed that she'd acknowledged me. She stood a few paces away, surveying flat, bland scenery. Greyed-out grass, distant tree line hazy in silvery grey, horizon an indistinct blur. Was I dead? I honestly didn't care so long as the pain was gone and my partner remained with me eternally. That thought made me almost giddy and I couldn't stop a smile from spreading across my lips. _I musta been a good boy,_ I thought. God musta seen something good I did once.

Amanda turned slowly until she was facing me, and the sadness that blossomed across her features broke my heart. I reached for her, saw the wet red stains on the torn sleeve that clung to me. Her face fractured into grief and she ran to me, squatting before she dropped onto her knees and lifted my upper body so she could cradle me beneath her chin, pressing me close to her heart.

"'M'not dead," I whispered in raspy tones as slight as the sound of a dove's wings as it first leaves the ground. "M'not dead, sweetheart, m'okay, m'okay now, s'all right." I tried to turn so I could hold her, so I could look into her eyes and caress her face. I trembled and my voice grew plaintive. I licked my lips, finding blood upon them thick and congealing. She turned me enough to gaze at my face, and my head lolled back too far, I felt something like a broken stick jabbed through my throat, and my head bobbed uncomfortably as I discovered I lacked the strength to lift it. My fingers fumbled weakly at her hair. Silver tears dripped onto me and I choked, horrified to see her cry.

Then four blades like tines on a pitchfork thrust out of the front of her chest and I made a shuddery syllable of dread, but what I could see of her face beneath the overhang of her limp black hair was only an evil, shark-like smile. My face burst into a rictus. This was hell. I had died. My punishment was to exist forever, trapped in my worst nightmare. The arms that held me dropped me like a boneless rag doll and the pale figure rose smoothly as the knife points withdrew, sucking the bloodstains they'd created back into the body they'd emerged from. She turned, and I caught sight of red sweater, dark pants on the other side of her, felt his confusion dark, crumbly, and sooty within my mind. To my surprise, I found myself propping myself easily on one elbow so I could see what happened. There was nothing wrong with me at all. I grinned at my good fortune, then let it melt away, wondering what might happen next.

"Sorry," came the gentle gravel of one genuinely concerned that he's made a terrible mistake.

Amanda's hair stirred. Her clothing moved as though stirred by some breeze I could not feel. A white ring materialized, glowing up out of the grass like some spectral boundary that defined where the fight of all fights was about to take place. I pushed myself into a sitting position, legs crossed. I could hear a strong wind. A faint white glow that was almost more like a simple distortion of the air formed around Amanda's outline. I mentally withdrew from her because trying to read her mind was like trying to stick my head out of a handy open window for a look-see during a particularly nasty hurricane. From Krueger I felt a strangeness…a peculiar sensation I eventually recognized as the denial of helplessness. I realized that just like most of us once we've acknowledged that we've drifted into a nightmare, he seemed to have lost his dream abilities, too.

Slow lengths of spidery flame flowed upward from the ring. Ghosts of what I could psychically pick up as power or energy writhed around us. While I was within the visible ring, I was under the strong impression that a kind of wavering cage of energy protected me from both of them, and that was when I guessed at how enraged 169 was, because she had never had to protect me from herself before.

Her back arched and her arms began to lift. I saw her rise to her toes, then just past them so that she seemed to dangle in mid-air. Beyond her, Krueger darted back and forth, scrabbling at the most insubstantial wall in the world, desperately seeking a weak spot. He finally flattened himself against it to watch. Out of curiosity, I idly reached for a blade of grass beyond the barrier, picked it, and waved it happily before my face like I was four and had just found a pretty feather. I flicked my eyes Krueger's way, expecting him to scowl and maybe flip me off, but he seemed mesmerized by the vision before him.

To me she was almost angelic, and perhaps his mind translated her in some other manner for I saw genuine fear begin to consume him. Bits of him broke free and drifted about like plastic glitter in a snow globe. I saw something like ghostly white ribbons streaming from Amanda's chest, flowing around her like she was under water. Her skin took on an opalescent sheen and I sensed desire warming me. Bits of woven fiber like something unfortunate that didn't survive the dryer after a long overdue laundering floated by. I reached toward them, but they vaporized before I could make contact with them. I smelled something like the air after a fresh snowfall, and all the little drifting bits ignited in vivid orange outlines that traveled toward their centers, leaving soft soot grey cinders dead and cooling. The man remained only in a hazy, blurry form with a hint of red coloring amidst the other duller, browning shades. The ashes whitened and rose before they slowly found their way beyond the psychic barrier. None came close to me.

I eased up onto my feet and stretched, feeling great, but tired, kind of the way I feel after sex. For that matter, I remembered that fabulous sandwich Geoff had made and found myself famished, longing for mayonnaise and the cool, satisfying sensation of my teeth meeting through crisp lettuce, thick, but brittle salty bacon, and that delicious meat. I strolled around the Quasar. Her eyes were closed, her features at peace. As I neared her, the protective barrier became something like a soft static cushion until I wrapped my arms around her and discovered that she was just at the right height. I licked my lips to make certain they weren't bloody, looked down to see that I, too, was dressed in soft white slacks with a soft, loose white shirt. I crushed her to me tenderly and lowered my face, closing my eyes.

Something flapped up suddenly like a sheet or tablecloth being snapped in my face, and I flinched as I felt my arms drawn upward. I opened my eyes to see I was holding onto thick straps that disappeared from view right before a balloon-like heart shape that flapped in the wind like silk. Heart-shaped parachute. I lowered my head and chuckled softly. Inky black water was more sensed than seen by me, though I could smell its frigid saltiness. It was nearly indistinguishable from the ink-black sky except where the lowest stars formed recognizable reflections directly below themselves. Ahead of me was a crescent moon so slight it was nearly a glowing, curved hair, huge and distant. Except I could see stars through its trough like the moon had actually changed shape and was not the product of the Earth's shadow upon it. I drifted serenely and felt overwhelmed by a miraculous, all-encompassing peace.


	19. Chapter 19

19

The house had returned to being a regular house the moment Amanda had vanished. No longer threatened by her rage, Geoff had set about examining his friend, Alexander, to find him whole and sleeping soundly as though nothing untoward had ever happened. He snored as McKenna unballed the blanket that was now free of vomit and checked the sheets to find they were free of blood. Then, exhausted from the ordeal, he decided he could use a nap himself. He had never feared death by Quasar before and hoped to never again. She was nowhere about, so he assumed everything had worked out okay and it was safe to fall asleep again. In case it wasn't, he removed his shoes and slumped in the white, cushioned chair near the bed, relatively certain that his friend would wake in time and use Amanda to save him if Freddy happened to make an appearance and decided he'd make a fun new plaything.


	20. Chapter 20

20

A few hours later his daughter picked him up in his own Jeep Cherokee after he'd called her. He'd left Roglitz drooling peacefully and locked up the house before leaving, absconding with a stock pot he'd loaded with small baggies and Tupperware-type containers of goodies he'd found in Alex's 'fridge.

Macy pestered him, insisting she knew something was up and he better tell unless he expected her to trick him out of it later. He laughed at the idea of her doing such a thing. She was pretty smart for a nineteen year old, but she was nowhere near his level of cunning. He made her promise not to tell her mother or anyone else for that matter, because they were afraid Amanda might be seized and put into stasis indefinitely.

"Ooh! Wha'd she do? Wha'd she do?"

He thought carefully, deciding how he would spin the tale. It seemed in his best interest not to link her to the mysterious deaths that had been reported in the news. "Okay. This morning, when I woke up, I'd had a nightmare."

"Okay, and?"

"And I woke up…all covered in scratches and bruises and stuff."

"Like a psychic attack?" She had been raised by a father who enjoyed dabbling in parapsychology. "Poltergeist? Spirit possession? Psychosomatic-"

"Freddy Krueger."

"Oh, ha ha," she said. "Right."

"No, seriously. Here's what happened. There was an _A Nightmare on Elm Street_ marathon on TV Halloween night-"

"I know I watched some of it."

His heart stuttered. She's been in danger of possibly dreaming of the lead character herself. He suddenly felt a lot more aware of how close he'd come to postponing Alex's idea.

"You okay?"

He'd placed a hand on his chest. "Yeah."

"So she watched it, and then you dreamed of Freddy and he attacked you? For real? Is that what you're trying to say?"

"Well, yes, but I didn't know who he was at the time, so I don't think he had the ability to kill me just yet."

Her eyes were large as she turned toward him. "Are you kidding me? No way! She really did it? Amanda believed in Freddy Krueger and he came to life? That's crazy! I don't believe it! Well, yeah I guess I kinda can…I mean, they're kinda alike…in a weird way."

He nodded and inhaled. "Right, so Alex came over and told us he'd had the same thing happen and once we realized who it was, well then we thought he might be able to fully manifest in our dreams and-"

"Kill you? Oh my God!" Her fingertips flew to her lips. "But Amanda likes you! And she loves Alex, but why would you think- _oh_. Well, she did let you guys get beat up. But she wouldn't do that! What happened?"

"We think that she made him real, and then, because his existence depends solely on whether people know about him and fear him, he continued to linger in the dream world, acting without further attention from her."

She snickered. "The Dreamworld. Like it's all the same place we go to. Like if you traveled around you might see everybody else who happens to be asleep at the same time and then share the same dream adventures."

He said, "Well, you know what I mean."

"Okay. Then what?"

"Well, Alex decided to confront him, so-"

"Oh my God!" she blurted, fingers at her lips again. "Oh my God, Dad!"

He'd seen nothing in the road ahead, no threats around them. "What?"

"Did she watch the entire marathon? Did she see every single movie?"

"I don't know, why?"

"You did get rid of him, didn't you? Freddy's not gonna beat me up or kill me if I happen to dream of him tonight?"

"It would only be a dream if you saw him," he assured her.

"But…holy…I mean…you know that in one movie…in one of the movies he meets Jason Voorhees…?"

Rang a bell, but it was a distant and indistinct one. "Who?"

"Hockey mask?" She looked at him as she approached an intersection, held one hand like a claw over her face and lifted the other one like there was some kind of stabbing weapon in it.

His throat felt dry and he swallowed uncomfortably. A sensation like imminent diarrhea clenched his insides and a cool sweat broke out on his exposed skin. "Turn around," he croaked faintly.

"Huh?"

"Turn this thing around!"

Macy sped toward the nearest place that looked suitable for U-turns and navigated a close call that resulted in someone mashing a horn before she floored it back into Manhattan with an excited grin on her face. "No _way!_ This is gonna be so cool!"

Geoff stared at her open-mouthed as though she'd lost her ever-lovin' mind.


	21. Chapter 21

21

"Behind me," said the news reporter, turning a little to indicate what was behind her, "is Camp Crystal Lake, former summer camp turned upscale housing development turned grisly murder scene…"


End file.
